In case you prefer watching me explaining how to overcome procrastination... video version's above!☝️
Have you ever found yourself paralyzed by procrastination, knowing exactly what needs to be done but unable to do it? I’ve been there.
Hey, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and this is my podcast "The Weeniecast!"
Pssssst! Want to download my free overcoming procrastination worksheet? You can do so here - https://weeniecast.com/procrastination-worksheet
Now, back to the episode!
In this episode we're getting deep into the murky waters of ADHD and procrastination!
A common challenge for us ADHD business owners.
One pressing question I receive frequently is: "Katie, how do I prevent myself from procrastinating?"
The truth is, I don’t always succeed.
As a business owner with ADHD, I face the same battles as my clients.
In this episode, I highlight some of the major challenges ADHD entrepreneurs face, from the pressures of self-imposed perfectionism to the frustrating cycle of executive dysfunction.
By sharing my vulnerabilities and the shame that comes from missed deadlines and unmet expectations, I aim to reassure you that you're not alone in this struggle and to provide tips that have helped me along the way.
After listening, you’ll gain valuable insights into managing your energy and building a more ADHD-friendly business.
You'll learn the importance of quitting work at the right time, so you can maximize your dopamine supply.
We’ll also explore the challenges of hiring the right people and how to bounce back when you've hired wrong.
And most importantly, we'll discuss how to shake off the toxic belief that rest must be earned—a concept that goes hand-in-hand with creating a sustainable, successful business.
Listen in for strategies that can help you turn your procrastination from a crippling hurdle into a manageable part of your entrepreneurial journey.
Timestamped summary
00:00 Struggle of running a business with ADHD.
04:13 Reward motivates, small tweaks lead to success.
08:54 Organizing tasks by dopamine levels improves productivity.
12:24 Trust emotions in decision-making and avoid impulsive spending.
14:56 ADHD-friendly membership, support, rest, and understanding.
17:20 Community support for shared experiences and coaching.
Your next steps after listening
Realizing it's time to work with me? Book your free initial strategy call with me - weeniecast.com/strategycall
Get more support in your ADHD entrepreneur life by joining my hyperfocus community! - https://weeniecast.com/hyperfocus
Wanna get this content earlier, and totally unbleeped? Subscribe to the Apple Podcasts premium version of this show - https://weeniecast.com/winners
Want to just buy me a coffee in return for some helpful insight? Thank you! Here's where you can do that - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiethecoach
Mentioned in this episode:
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Join the Hyperfocused Community
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In this episode, I'm going to tell you about the support
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I wish I had to help me bypass some serious
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procrastination. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business
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strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the
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Weeniecast. A question I get an
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annoying amount of times is how do I prevent myself from
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procrastinating? How do I get everything done on my to do list
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and on and on and on. And let me tell you, I don't.
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One of the challenges of being a coach who works with
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ADHD business owners is that I am also an ADHD
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business owner. And the challenges don't change when you know
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better. Just because I help other people figure out how to overcome their
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challenges with their ADHD in starting and growing their businesses
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doesn't mean I have it all figured out myself. For me and my
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business, far from it, knowing all the different
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strategies that can work for other people creates an immense amount of pressure on
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me to just be perfect at all this stuff
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because I teach on it after all, right, I should be perfect.
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I fail in managing my ADHD every single day in
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my business and I know the shame that goes along with it. I know the
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frustration and sometimes it's not a big deal, you know, sometimes I
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don't post to LinkedIn and okay, cool, I'll post
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tomorrow. Sometimes my newsletter. Oh, no, that's a bad
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example. I'm very bad at having a newsletter, so that's an ongoing problem.
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I've actually, I'm gonna start outsourcing that to someone
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so we won't even touch upon the newsletter. Just don't pay attention to that part
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of this podcast. I know Neal's not going to edit this out, so,
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you know, I'll accidentally book an appointment at 02:00 in the afternoon
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and then I'll just be in waiting mode all morning and all through lunch
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and then right until 02:00 p.m. Until I have that meeting
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because I'm afraid that I'll miss it. And then the rest of the day I'll
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still be in executive dysfunction, not able to do anything because I'm disappointed
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in myself for not getting more done in the morning. So I know the shame
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that goes into running a business when you have
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ADHD. I know how hard it is to
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sit there in executive dysfunction, knowing all the things that you need to
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do that you want to do and not being able to get up and just
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do it. I understand the sinking feeling of
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shame when your well meaning neurotypical loved
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ones are like, well, just do it. Just, just start.
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And it'll be so simple when you start, as if it's easy.
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There are so many challenges that go into managing ADHD, and
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one of the big ones is we thrive in structure. Structured
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environments are perfect for us. So having a nine to five can actually be really
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healthy for us. But a lot of us do not thrive
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in the nine to five ness. Like the expectations in the nine to
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five don't fit us. And also often the activities that we're doing
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every single day in the nine to five don't reflect our gifts, so it
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tends to burn us out. So what do we do? We go off and we
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start businesses where we have to create the structure, and we
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suck at that. We're not good at creating structure for ourselves. And
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because we're working on our own and because we're responsible for creating
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the structure and it's not going well, we can sometimes
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spiral a little bit out of control. We can start punishing
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ourselves and overworking. And I do this all the time. And
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here's a few ways that I have been working on becoming better at this
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myself. Now,
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better is by no means perfect, but these are
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small things that I've been doing for myself that I do coach my clients
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to do. And members of the hyperfocus membership, which is the thing
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that brought this whole topic up, because the hyper focus membership has
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been on a enrollment pause for the last
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nine months. Do you know why? Because I've been
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procrastinating, writing the f landing page. It wasn't until about
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a month ago where I got a burst of dopamine
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and my executive dysfunction decided to off for a little bit, where I
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was able to sit down and actually write out this whole
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landing page in one sitting. And I want to talk about this because
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a oftentimes people think that like, the reward
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for doing something is enough for us to be
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motivated to start it, to work on it, right? So the
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reward for finishing a landing page is what you make money
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because people are able to go to the landing page, see what you're
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selling, click the buy button, and then all of a sudden their money
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becomes your money and you have a client that didn't necessarily work for
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me for nine whole months. And I'm convinced
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that making these small tweaks in my day to
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day are what finally got me to the point where I had the
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emotional, mental and dopamine bandwidth
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to actually sit down and do this. So the number one
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thing that I've been working on in the last handful of months
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is to quit work when I'm tired, not exhausted.
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As an adhder, I am so used to sitting
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down and doing a project all in one sitting. Every single research paper
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I did in school, I did the night before, I stayed up all
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night and I wrote the paper. And usually I didn't even go
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to sleep in the morning because I didn't want to miss the class because once
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I fell asleep, then I was dead to the world. Any sewing project I ever
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did in high school, because I was really big on making costumes for my friends
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and for myself, I would do in one sitting. I would literally just put on
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all of the Lord of the Rings movies and have them on the background as
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I made these elaborate costumes. And a lot of the things that
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I do in my business, I do in one sitting. I have to. It's just
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how my brain works. And when you do things in one sitting,
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the goal is get it done at any cost, because
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usually there is a deadline that you cannot miss. If you miss that
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deadline, then none of the work counts. If you're doing a costume for
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Halloween and it's the night before Halloween and you don't finish the costume, guess what?
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You don't have a costume to wear on Halloween. I mean, certain professors in
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university, if you do not finish the paper by the time it's
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due, you do not get to submit it late. So when we
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grow up that way, when we learn that we have to get things done at
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any cost, what we train ourselves to do is work through exhaustion.
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And that's all well and good when it's about a paper
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or, you know, something silly, because usually you have some time to
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recuperate afterwards. But in a business, you don't have that.
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In a business, if you work yourself past exhaustion on a
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project, that means the next day or two,
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you're going to be useless. You're going to have a really hard
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time doing any of the daily
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tasks in your business because your dopamine is going to be completely
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flatlined. And it's really hard to train yourself out of
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this because the signal normally to stop working is you finish
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the thing or you're so exhausted you cannot put
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another two words together. Or like that time in high school when I was
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making a Disney princess costume, I accidentally
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sewed through one of my fingers on the sewing machine and I had to go
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to the emergency room. That's another sign that you need to be done. Not one
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I recommend. Is that too gruesome?
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When we quit, when we're tired, when we're just starting to slow
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down a bit, when our brains are just getting a little bit murky and things
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start taking a little longer. What we're basically doing
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is keeping a reserve of dopamine that we can utilize the next
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day. It feels like you're being lazy when you do this.
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It feels like you are being totally self
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indulgent because you've had a whole lifetime of
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programming of people calling you lazy for not starting the
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thing already. And then by the time you start doing it, well,
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you know you have to finish it. You did this to yourself. You
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procrastinated. So now you have to get it done and you have to stay up
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late and you have to punish yourself. One of the hardest lessons I've had to
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learn in the six plus years that I've run my business is that,
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yes, I set the deadlines for things in my business, but
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also those deadlines get to be flexible. And
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me missing a self imposed deadline does
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not mean that I'm a terrible person. It doesn't mean that I'm unprofessional.
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It doesn't mean that this business isn't going to work. It means that I'm a
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human, and I'm a human with ADHD. And sometimes that's just
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how we work. I did another episode a while back about how
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I use my own procrastination as a self care method to
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reduce stress. If you want to go and listen to this episode, it's episode
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77, and I break down exactly how I take different tasks,
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like high dopamine required tasks and low dopamine required
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tasks. And I always have them organized in lists so that when
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I'm having a high dopamine day, I can say, okay, awesome, I'm ready to get
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some shit done. And I look at the list of high dopamine stuff that I
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need to do, and I get to pick and choose, and I don't have to
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do any of the mental work of planning what needs to be done.
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Likewise, on days where I'm just not feeling it, I have no energy.
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My dopamine's in the gutter. I'm able to look at those low
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dopamine items and say, okay, cool, here's some really
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easily accessible things that I can absolutely get done today.
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And what this does is it gives me the ability to use my own
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procrastination to get things done that I need to get done anyway. So
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I've been quitting when I'm tired since the beginning of this
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year in 2024 and I'm convinced that
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by doing that, I have been storing up dopamine throughout the week so
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that I don't get to that point of exhaustion where I need a whole day
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to recover and where I randomly do get those
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really high dopamine spurts. And that's how I finally
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finished this damn landing page. The other aspect to this is,
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oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to
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find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
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The other aspect to this is knowing when to ask for help
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and who to ask for help from. One of the most challenging bits
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about this project in particular is that I had actually hired
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someone to do it for me. I hired someone
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who had one really strong recommendation from someone that
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I know and trust. She has a really massive following on
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social media, and the work this person did for her was
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just very successful. And so when I
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approached this man to write my landing page for me and to design it and
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do all that stuff, you know, he was like, yep, absolutely.
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He went and did it, and he wrote a landing page for a completely different
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program. It's like he didn't understand any of the
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notes that I was giving him about what the hyper focus was, membership was, and
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there were just a lot of problems with it. There are a lot of really
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basic mistakes that anyone who's done any
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studies in copywriting would know not to make. And
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when I tried to work with this individual and give him feedback
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and just say, hey, you know, like, here's my feedback on the
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copy that you wrote here and how it's laid out and this and that and
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the other thing. He didn't even understand the basic copywriting terms that
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I was using. This kicked off me feeling like a complete
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failure. You know, I coach on this stuff, and I hired the wrong
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person. You know, I didn't vet him well enough. And
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also, I felt like I'd kind of gotten scammed, which basically
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I had been, because he was selling a service that he was not
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qualified to provide. So of course, this
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is for the landing page for hyperfocus. So, of course it created all this
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icky energy around the idea of working on it myself.
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And I name this not to badmouth anyone. I'm not going to name who this
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is because I want you to know that you're going to hire the wrong people.
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There are a lot of unscrupulous individuals out there who are
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going to gladly take your money to help you do a thing that they
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have no ability to help you do. And that's just how the
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world works, unfortunately. And when this happens,
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you have a couple choices. You can absolutely label yourself as
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a failure and make it all doom and gloom and
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a foretelling that you're going to fail at this business, or you can take it
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as a lesson. Now obviously, I highly recommend
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taking it as a lesson, but if you do, you can't take it
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as a lesson right away. You have to let the emotions kind of process. You
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don't let those emotions process out of you. It's gonna create this,
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like, negativity suck around this project and you're never gonna be able to get it
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done. There's also a trust element. If you hired someone to do
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something and they completely failed at it for you and you're out the
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money and you know they're no longer helping you. And
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obviously you either have a choice of doing it yourself and you haven't done it
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before or hiring someone else when, oh my God, what if I make
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the wrong decision again? You have to kind of rebuild trust in other
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people, and more importantly, you have to rebuild trust
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with yourself to know make good decisions. And here's the lesson that
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I think most ADHD business owners need to learn is that
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throwing money at a problem is not a for sure way
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to fix the problem.
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So it's absolutely ironic that in
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relaunching the hyperfocus membership, I ran into
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pretty much every ADHD obstacle in the
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book in getting the landing page up and running
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on the landing page, which, if you want to go check it out, it's weenie
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cast.com forward slash hyperfocused. And we
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also have that listed in the show notes. You'll notice that I actually call myself
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out on it. One of the big reasons I launched hyperfocus the
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membership is because I wanted there to be an accessible
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low ticket offer where folks who maybe aren't ready to work
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with me or can't afford to work with me yet can
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still get coaching, can still get support. But I also
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created it because we all need a place for accountability.
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We all need a place to go and say, oh God, guys, this
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is what's going on for me. I think I'm really it up and have everyone
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pipe up and say, no, you're not just it up. I go through
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that too. It's normal. We also need a place to go and ask for
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good referrals. I like, literally, I would not have been
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able to launch this landing page if it weren't for my team.
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And my team is incredibly ADHD. Sensitive.
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They know not to nag me about stuff because they know nagging is actually
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going to be a surefire way to prevent me from doing it even longer. Because
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when you get nagged about something creates more bad energy and
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beliefs around it. It makes you feel like you've already failed at it and it
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robs you of all the dopamine that you'll get from finishing it. This membership is
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designed to help you find people like that who understand how
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your brain works and how you can be best supported in all the
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ways that you need to be supported in your business. One of the things that
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I'm really excited to be rolling out in the early summer is to
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have guest trainers. One of the things that I'm vetting for
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when I pick these guest trainers is do they have ADHD
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friendly methodologies? I'm never going to bring someone into this
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community who's going to say, well, just do it. Just power through in
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a very neurotypical, condescending kind of way that doesn't belong
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here because that's not what's going to be useful to us. It's
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also a place where we can be reminded time and time
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again that we do not need to earn
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rest. How many times have you sat down at the dinner table with your
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spouse, your partner, with your family family and been asked,
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oh, how was your day? And you list off a gazillion things that you
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did in a way that, like subconsciously you're trying to get
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their approval. Wow, you did a lot. You deserve to be sitting
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down and having dinner and you deserve to watch some tv later, and you
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deserve to put on soft pants and just kick back on your
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couch. You earned this by working
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hard. The more I coach other ADHD business owners
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and the more I get in touch with myself and how
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I work and how I sabotage myself, the more I realize the
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biggest problem ADHD business owners have.
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Because we're ambitious, because we're hard workers, because we have this
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vision of this bigger life that we want to have, and because I carry
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a whole buttload of shame and beliefs that I'm
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lazy, that I don't work hard enough, that there's something deficient about
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me. The more I see this in myself and in my clients, the more I
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realize the biggest hurdle we need to overcome is
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learning that we do not need to earn rest. When we
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prioritize rest and recharging our brains and
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recuperating our bodies. When we prioritize that first,
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everything else becomes more successful. If you want to hear more about
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this, then go and check out episode 81, where I talk all about my favorite
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topic, which is sleep. But genuinely, if you want
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to be successful at running your business, if you want to make buckets of
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money, if you want to help thousands of people out there in the world,
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first you need to help yourself. And if you'd like a community
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around you, to support you and to remind you
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that you're normal, I mean, as normal as we get, and that
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your struggles are not unique, and to remind you that you
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deserve to actually enjoy this whole
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journey and you want some coaching from me, then I
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invite you to check out the hyper focused membership. It's designed for
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people like you and me, and I really wish I had it nine months
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ago.
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I'm gonna look that up. Hold on.
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Do turtles
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eat mosquitoes?
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Squirrel, squirrel. Squirrel, squirrel.