We all face. Welcome, Tina.

Thank you. That was such a lovely introduction. How very sweet of you. And so glad to be here. This is I mean, I do specialise a lot working in the workplace, which is how I naturally end up talking a lot about productivity, like how do I get stuff done? Yeah, it's great to be here talking about it.

Oh, thank you. And obviously, the workplace, you don't get stuff done, you get fired. And and actually, you it's more than that. You end up usually with massive issues around anxiety, depression, around self worth, and the knock on impacts are enormous. And unravelling how to get stuff done is is it's more than getting stuff done. And I think Oh, absolutely. I mean, Emma was it yeah. It was Emma Thompson talking about workplace stuff earlier.

I'm gonna have to go back and listen to that again because I thought that was really good as well in terms of tips and understanding. And there was a lot of stuff in there as well in terms of what employers can do.

It was. And she did a very good job because she her microphone did not work. Oh, yeah. She started twenty four minutes late and managed to Squeeze it all in now. Was depressed. Also like, you know, under pressure, sorted it out, like swapped out the computer, put it, got a new one in place, got it going. Was like, this is well done. Right. I'm gonna share your slides and hand over to you. Excellent.

Thank you. Keep going. Right. Yeah. So why can't I just start? I mean, a question that I get a lot, and we're gonna talk about how we can sort of build a productivity framework by just understanding ourselves a little bit better, so make it a little bit more accessible. So Henry has already said lots of lovely things about me. This is what I look like when I'm having a cup of tea. I do I I am an ADHD coach, but I also work as a neuro inclusive consultant with organizations. To that end, I'm also a certified diversity, equity, and inclusion practitioners, but I still specialize in neurodiversity. I'm also a mental coach, I train other ADHD coaches at the neurodiversity training academy.

I'm also Swedish. Now why am I telling you that at the beginning? Because some of you will be neurodivergent and might spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that sort of twang is because at some point, you'll hear something. So now you know. So hopefully, that helps focusing on the content at hand. I also run a monthly drop in session for ADHD UK on the first Tuesday of every month at 5PM where You can come and ask any questions about ADHD in the workplace. It's a great group of of people that show up and it's always really welcoming, so feel free to join us there as well. What I really want you to come away with today is a fresh perspective on motivation and productivity for ADHD brains and an understanding of why.

Common strategies sometimes work and sometimes they don't. And, of course, I'm a coach, so I want you to come away with some practical takeaways as well that you can take on and replicate and experiment with, ideally. So some common common dilemmas. How do you make yourself start? How how you know, why are so many of us buying new notebooks or stationery ever so often even if the last one is still, like, half empty? Or, you know, we have piles of empty stationary that that was really exciting at one point. And what is the hype about noise cancelling headphones? And why are deadlines sometimes the only thing that seems to get us moving?

And how do we manage that in a kind of healthier way without burning out? Because there's a huge risk of kind of getting into burnout cycles with that one. Well, so we're all kind of told the same story here that important things should motivate us. Society basically tells us on a daily basis that if it matters, you'll just do it. You should just be able to do it. Things like, you know, parking fines that we need to pay or sending a card for Mother's Day, something that I have been guilty of several time of missing. So, mother, if you're watching, I am really sorry. I know she understands, though. But but also remembering.

To organize an outfit for World Book Day, for example. I'm sure lots of you can relate to that as well. We think we should remember stuff because they are important, and we do care about them. Right? We care about not spending too much money in parking fines because I mean, who wants to do that anyway? And we care about family. But when we don't, this voice often shows up. You know? I should just do it. You know? Why do I just get stuck? We blame ourselves. We think we're lazy. And why can't we just do it? And maybe we just need a little bit of more willpower. But essentially, it is a wiring difference, which I know everyone has spoken to today that has spoken anything about the ADHD brain.

It's not that we don't know that these things are important. Sometimes it's not even that we we can't remember. We know we can even feel the importance more than others a lot of the time. We have very thinking feeling brains. Right? But the point is that the importance doesn't flip the switch in ADHD brains a lot of the time. So what if productivity was never about getting better at the important things? Obviously, I'll explain what I mean by that. Like, with an ADHD brain, it often feels like we just can't get the car started, I. E. Ourselves started.

So it's like trying to run a petrol car on water. No matter how hard you press the pedal or you try to turn the key or jiggle the key, the car is just not going anywhere. And you end up feeling stuck and frustrated and believing that you are the problem. You are not the problem, my friend. This is the trap that we're talking about here. We think that we should be motivated by importance. So we try harder, we get stuck, we blame ourselves, and then we feel shame, and then we try harder, and so it goes on. It's just one perpetual cycle. And that's how we end up in this land of should. Now I'm not trying to depress you here. I'm sure a lot of you recognize yourselves in this. But the point of showing this is that having an awareness.

Of this perpetuating cycle, and hopefully the visual helps as well, allows you to start doing something differently and maybe stop trying to push harder on that should button or just need to try harder. So the issue isn't willpower. It is about fuel. Energy, essentially. But today, we're gonna call it fuel. Your brain isn't starting, isn't not starting because it's broken. It's because you're using the wrong fuel or fuel sources. ADHD brains are not motivated by importance. So for most people, especially neurotypical brains, importance works works like that car key. Right? You just put it in, you turn it, dopamine fires up, and off you go. The importance equals action. It's very simple. It's very logical.

And because it looks so simple and logical as well, to us as well, it's easy to look at that and kinda go, well, I should be able to do that. It doesn't look that hard. But for ADHD brains, not so much. And let's be real. Like, how many of us have, like, sat staring at something really important and absolutely nothing happens? And then, like, half an hour later, we're deep diving into some random rabbit hole. Like, it's a, like, life and death mission. And to get some community going here, wherever chats you're in, if you can relate to them, put, like, a little quick yes in the chat so that other people don't feel lonely if that's their experience too. So if importance isn't the ignition for us, what actually is? So ADHD brains.

Are fueled by these things, like interest and novelty and urgency and passion and meaning. I feel like I'm doing that More passion. More yeah. That meme thing. Anyway, I digress. These are the sort of things that sparks and that actually switch our brains on, ADHD brains. They're what triggered dopamine in our brains, and that's what allows us to start focus and finish. So if you think about it, right, interest, for example, if you have an ADHD child and maybe they love dinosaurs, they'll happily read 10 books on dinosaurs, then they'll memorize 50 species, and they'll lecture you everything about the Jurassic era.

But you ask them to do, like, two maths equations on their on their homework, and suddenly, it's like you're trying to make them climb Mount Everest or something. And urgency, for example, very much likes looks like now or not now. Right? Until that deadline is, like, breathing down our necks, and you've got a few hours to go or twelve hours to go depending on the size of the task here, nothing is gonna happen. And then all of a sudden, we get closer to it, and it's literally like a switch gone on in our brains. It goes into turbo mode, but, of course, great fuel to some extent, but it's easy to lead to burnout cycles. It has literal physical side effects. So.

If that's your main fuel and, you know, that works for you, we might still need to look at that. So it's not a flaw in our brains. Like, we talk a lot about how the ADHD brain is there's nothing wrong with it. It's just wired differently. The same here. This isn't a flaw. It's not laziness. It's simply a different fuel system that we need to understand, and we need to learn how to operate. Because when we work with it and we find strategies that feed this part, we get energy, and we don't feel so drained if that's an issue. And we find momentum, and we can complete stuff. We can start stuff, and we can continue, and we can complete stuff.

So there are obviously loads of strategies out there that you could try. So why should we look at it this way? Well, because strategies in and within themselves, they stop working sometimes. Right? You might have a perfectly good list that worked yesterday and that it pulled you into action, and today, it's just not doing anything for you. And this is because if lists was about some sort of clarity, and now you got so excited about the list that you've added another.

20 things to it, that clarity has just started to fade away and overwhelm has taken hold. So whereas we kind of felt like, well, lisd was really working. It's now isn't anymore because it it's not bringing you the clarity fuel that you had that was that was working to start with. We didn't realize maybe that clarity was the thing that was so important. So now our list is less actionable, it's less energizing, and it's not working anymore. And the brain can't see the next step. Right? So it just stops working. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the strategy was bad or that failed. It just means that what was fueling that list working is no longer working or it's shifted. And I often hear this from from.

Clients of mine as well that, you know, they come in and say, you know, when I was writing lists, it was really working. I just wanna get back to the the way that I was doing things before. However, if the list in this example I'm gonna stick to that example. If the list was about novelty or, like, a newness of freshness, the idea of going back to that is never actually gonna work because your brain is looking for something fresh and exciting, something new. So the idea of going back to it isn't gonna be the best strategy. And let's face it as well. Hacks, they kinda lose their magic. Right? Many of us think that if I just have the right app or the right planner or the right routine.

Or, you know, everything is just gonna fall into place. And maybe you've even had it working like that at some point. So you have evidence that that was working. And the idea that there is something out there that will actually fix things for us is very alluring. And this is why this is why marketing for apps and, I don't know, bullet journals or planners sometimes feels irresistible. Right? Or you're in a stationery shop, for example. Because we want to believe that this is the this is the thing that's gonna do it. This is the thing that's gonna make all the difference. But what you actually need is a better understanding of you with some built in flexibility, something that gives you a menu of options.

Different ways to kinda spark maybe similar fuel or the fuel that you understand works for you, or switch to a different fuel entirely for different things, and that's where the flexibility part of it comes in. So we're gonna look well, look at what that can look like. Now bearing in mind that this isn't about finding the system or the thing. It doesn't exist. I'm sorry if that's breaking your bubble, but it doesn't exist. It is about building your own menu. It sort of ties back to that old saying, if you have met one ADHDer, you have met one ADHD. That's why, like, some generic set of strategies isn't just automatically going to to work for everyone in the same way.

Knowing what fuels you helps you stay in motion. It helps you understand yourself and how you need to operate. So as we kind of go through some of these ideas, just take what works for you about all of this, notice what you find interesting, and take note. This is anything that where your brain kinda goes, oh, oh, hang on. Is there something there? Is is good information. I'll I'll explain. So I have a worksheet that goes with this. I had it it's possibly all already on the website as well, so you don't need to scan this. But if you you can also scan it and download it. But, yeah, you can check on the ADHD Global website as well, and it should be available there. Now, also, you don't need this right now. You can look at it later.

You don't need it at all. You can just stay present and and listen to everything going on. So don't worry too much about it, especially if you're in a position where you can't look at it right now. It's not needed. But it's there to kinda help you with the self exploration of what works for you. So as we're going through this, like I said, just notice if something gives you energy or you feel, like, excited about it or feels like useful information. The and and take note. If something if you come across something that I say that sort of you tried and you know it isn't gonna work, that's still information. That's still data, as I like to call it. Data is important because it all of this information, it's not good, bad, or right, or wrong.

It's feedback. Right? Data feedback. And I like that because it doesn't have any positive or negative connotations to it. It's just simply information that you can take and and use. So think of yourself a little bit like a scientist that running experiments. Every result tells you something about what fuels you, what excites you, what your brain likes. So let's have a look at some examples. Now we're gonna start with body doubling. I know Anita Anita who was on earlier, she mentioned body doubling as well. She had a question about body doubling. But in case you haven't heard about body doubling, it's basically simply.

When you work along somebody else. So they don't have to be doing the same task as you. Sometimes they're just there. They might be sitting nearby. They're focusing on their thing, and you're focusing on your your thing. But somehow, that presence helps you get started and keep going. And we're gonna look at what is that somehow. What is it that makes body doubling work? Now for one person, body doubling works because there is an element of connection there. Just having someone else in the room makes the task feel less lonely. For someone else, it might be about accountability.

Right? If I've told somebody else or declared what it is that I'm working on, I'm more likely to follow through or work focused on that as opposed to getting distracted. For someone else, it might be a bit of novelty and fun. Right? Because they don't normally work like that. So, you know, it's exciting. It brings energy because of that reason. Something to break the monotony monotony. It's the same strategy, but it can have totally different energy foot fuel depending on depending on you. So this may and, you know, some people might like body doubling. Others might not like body doubling. It might even work differently for you as a person on a different day or a different situation or for a different task even.

All of these are also dependent on, like they're situationally variable, meaning that they work differently maybe in different environments and and just depending on how how you feel. So it will have an impact on how well body doubling works as a strategy, all of that. You know, time of day, how you're feeling, how much sleep you had, etcetera. So we don't want to rely on strategy alone. Because if you can identify the fuel behind it, then you can replicate that fuel in other ways, and you're no longer stuck when a favorite strategy kinda loses its spark or shine a little bit. But let me give you another example. So noise and sound. So for some people, background noise is great. Right? The in a cafe or the the gym.

Or just a good playlist or white noise or or some people got TV blaring in the background all of the time. It helps them focus. It brings energy. It works. Right? And for others, noise is absolutely unbearable. What they need is quiet. And here's where I'll admit I'll have a little bit of an opinion about noise cancelling headphones because they're often in marketed as kind of the ADHD tool strategy, if you will, especially in workplaces. But unless you know what it does for you specifically, it is just headphones. Right? So blocking everything out isn't always the answer. For some of us, it's silence. For some of us, the silence is literally disorientating, even discombobulating. So instead of it bringing calm and focus.

You can end up being more distracted because you know you can't hear, so you're just focusing on looking around all the time. So the point isn't the headphones. The point is what makes the headphones work or what they're used for. And sometimes that fuel is clarity from shutting everything out maybe. Sometimes it's a sensory regulation, and you might be playing things that calms your nervous system. Sometimes it's energy from having, you know, dance music. I often use it for for kind of if I'm feeling a little bit low on energy, I might stand up and dance around to some really loud music. Right? And sometimes it's transition as well. The music tells you what energy you should have or it helps give you that cue that what what.

About what to do next. Because every time you play, like, Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, that's how you start your day every day. So when you hear that, it's like your body sort of goes, alright. This is what we're doing now. That's how it works. So I encourage you, if you like noise cancelling headphones or if you don't, figure out what it is about it that works for you. The tool is never the whole story. It's about knowing what it does for you. You're gonna hear me say that a few times, but it's important. So now we've got two, I think, familiar sets of kind of strategies and tools on here. So we've got timers, and we've got checklists.

They're very different strategies on paper. One is about managing time. The other one is about managing tasks, but the the different strategies can light up some of the same fuel. So with a timer, it can create that urgency. Right? You set a timer and say, like, oh, I'm gonna do this in twenty minutes in order to to, you know, get it done. It but a checklist can do the same thing. If you've got two things left on your checklist, that little and you've got you know, you're nearing the end of the day, that can be really motivating. That urgency can be really motivating. Time blocking. So maybe you are putting time on your calendar. So you have maybe write the report in a time slot between ten and eleven.

And that provides some clarity. Like, you know you're gonna do that. And a checklist can also, of course, provide some clarity, especially if it's takeable stuff. So sending a draft to manager instead of finished project, it's a little bit too elusive. It doesn't necessarily provide the clarity we need. But if it's if it is clear, that can be really helpful. Timers can also feel like we're racing against time, right, which is an element of gamification. And a habit tracker or app can also feel like gamification because you often get on habit trackers those sort of sequences, like, how many have you done in a row? And we don't wanna break that sequence, and that's the gamification. I think.

Clients of mine are talking about some other app that's got some sort of Tamaguchi type things. You have to do the things you list for this thing to be alive. Stuff stuff like that's gamification. But the point of this of looking at it in this way is that it's that's the pathway. What really matters is what about that is exciting to you because you can use that again. And and with checklist as well, like, it can also be about transition. Right? So it's the place that you go to reorientate yourself, to check what's next and how you then move on to the next thing. It can be about visualizing, seeing.

What's gonna happen next, what have you got left, and that that can be about visualizing. That can be about clarity. You start to kinda get like, yeah, there's overlap here. And maybe that is starting to sound a little bit messy, but that's kind of the point. So I'll show you an even messier slide. It's intentional. So this looks busy. And, of course, it's deliberate because ADHD productivity is messy. And it's a good thing. You because you'll you'll notice that there are lots of things here. Right? There's in in our pathways, we've got clarity, accountability, connection, and and strictly speaking, they aren't necessarily separate fuels. They're just access points to these.

Five main things of interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and passion. But in real life, we rarely say, I need novelty. We say things like, I need to go and work in a cafe or I need to make a list. Those are the sparks. They're the handles that we grab onto that kind of unlock the these bigger fuels underneath. So don't get too hung up on on the structure of all of this. They're mainly there for contextual learners around among us, which is which I am one of them. So it was important for me to sort of show you something about how it all sort of comes together. But what what is important is is essentially understanding what it is that energizes and fuels us. So in some of these examples, take a weighted blanket.

So for some people, that's about comfort and safety. And for others, it's about sensory regulation. That that's the feeling that helps them keep calm enough to maybe focus. And I know plenty of clients that use weighted blankets for work as well, so because it it just keeps them grounded. Working in a cafe or a library, for example, that might be a bad connection, but it might be about being around other people. It might be about accountability. It whatever it whatever it is in order to that that keeps you on task. For for others, it's energy in general. It's a momentum. You know, I'm here now. I need to start. That was, to be fair, one of the things that worked.

Probably well for some of us before COVID, before we were working from home a lot, is that we had some really clear cues about when our work started and when it finished. Because we went in, and that was the beginning, and we went home, and that was the end. But yeah. And things like task batching as well, it looks like maybe a organizational trick, but for many, it's clarity. Right? You can actually see how things fit together. And for others, it's structure, it's routine. And then we have something like visualizing that finish line. I am a fan of that. That could spark gamification. It could turn it into seeing that win, and that's exciting, and that's what makes us want to chase that. And for others, it might be clarity. So just to.

Really show the messiness, you know, I could, of course, demonstrate how all of these things might have a crossing over, but I think you get the point at this time in in the content. This is also not an exhaustive list. Right? It the point is just to to demonstrate that there are loads of different strategies, loads of variations of different strategies. What is really helpful is if we understand what the energy that it brings underneath it. And the point is also not to memorize a giant list of these. It's to notice what actually feels behind you. So let's take a step back from all this messiness. And if we zoom out, the process itself can be quite straightforward. So.

Our brains are fueled by interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and passion. And then we need to ask ourselves, okay. What do I need right now? That's the lived experience. But rather than tying that to a strategy, it's like, what is the fuel that we need right now? Is it clarity? Is it novelty? Is it something else? And then we match that to a strategy, not the other way around. Because it's not about forcing yourself into a planner or a timer. It's about looking at yourself kinda going, what do I need? And that's the core of it, really. You will need a strategy. And once you know that, you can stop chasing the sort of magic fixes and start building your own but very personalized, flexible toolkit. So to bring it all together.

Like, a lot of the time, people come to me frustrated not because they don't have a strategy, but because they can't understand why something that once worked has stopped working or why a tool that seems to work for everyone doesn't work for them. I had a client once who said, you know, I used to be brilliant with lists. I'd I'd make a list. I'd take things off, and it felt amazing. Now I can't it just I make lists, and I just ignore them. Like, what's wrong with me? And the experience was one of failing, but actually, you know, neither them or the list was broken. The fuel had shifted. The first list was giving them what they needed, and later, it just became vague and long.

It's unlikely that something has broken, but when you look at what made that work before, what was exciting about it, the fix is rarely about the list itself. And it's also not about, okay. Lisdexamfetamine work. Let's throw that away. There's usually it worked at one point, so something about it worked. Right? And it is that something that we wanna try and understand. Now this is, of course, a lot of the work that I do as an ADHD coach. A lot of us do as ADHD coaches. We help them notice patterns, and we're trained in that kind of listening so that we we can we can pick and pick out and hear what it is that that energizes a person a lot of the time. And you then kinda build that toolkit together, and you reflect back.

But I know not everybody has access to coaching, so this is really a presentation and a worksheet that is kind of my way to giving back and giving you a sort of self learning tool, if you want. So you can experiment, and you can reflect, and start to understand your own fuels in the same way I would guide someone in coaching. And it's not about having something that's perfect. It's just learning about yourself. Yeah. Let's oh, yeah. Breaking. Now we gotta be clear about this. Even with all of the tools and everything worked out, things will still break. And when a strategy stops working, it doesn't mean that it's failed. It means that we've got some information. It's bringing you data.

It might be that you've changed. The situation's changed. Your day's changed. Your physical fitness has changed. It something will break. Right? It is not a bug. It is a feature. It is feedback. We need to ask ourselves, okay, What did change? What do I need now? Circumstances might have changed, and preferences might have have changed. And how you talk to yourself in these moments really matters Because self compassion is not of about fluffy self care. It is a literal productivity tool. Because guilt and shame just steals energy. But when we are kind to ourselves and we look at the data and the information, it does change things. It keeps us resilient. It reduces that emotional overwhelm, and it keeps us being able to move forward. So.

Next time you get stuck, try this. Just pause, take a breath, and ask yourself, what would you say to a friend who was struggling with this? And then you say that to yourself. Because being kind to yourself isn't letting yourself off the hook. It's keeping yourself in the game. It's what helps you to get stuff done. So, again, if you want to download that worksheet, by all means, do. It is if it's not there already, it will be on the ADT Global website as well. And remember, this is not about creating something perfect, so you don't need that either. But I want you to consider what you wanna take away from this, whether you download a worksheet or not. Right? Based on what we've said, like, what do you know about what already works? What.

Is resonating with you in terms of the the the fuels maybe? Maybe you heard a strategy you've not thought about before. And if you're not sure yet, because I do get this as well, where it's like, don't know that anything's ever worked. Right? That you don't need past data either. You can just start experimenting today. You can just either start experimenting with a few or with a strategy and just notice what happens from there. And if you do feel comfortable, again, if you wanna share in the chat anything that's sparked for you, anything that you're taking away, it's, again, really helpful for the community to kind of hear that what they think and feel resonates with everybody else. Whatever you do, do not leave it in your head.

Write it down because why would you wanna waste precious executive functions on trying to remember stuff? Especially since when you're gonna need these sort of approaches, it's probably gonna be when you're feeling a bit stuck or a bit overwhelmed. So that's not where executive functions work the best anyway. So do write it down. And this is where I leave you. So it's not about perfection. I can't say that enough for all the perfectionists amongst us. It's about support and the support that works for you specifically. And do remember that when something works, it's fuel. When something doesn't work, it's data. You don't have to spiral into guilt. You just notice. You let it guide you, and it will tell you what it needs.

And self compassion is not a luxury. It is a tool. It's what keeps us moving, keeps us productive. So this is about your fuel, your tools, and to do it your way. That is it for me, ladies and gentlemen. I suspect I talked quite fast there, so you might so we've probably got lots of time now. Maybe Henry has even gone for a break. Oh, this is me, by the way. So you wanna connect with me. I am primarily on LinkedIn. That QR code goes to my profile on LinkedIn. I have a website. I have Instagram and Facebook as well, so connect with me wherever you would like to. I also have more kind of resources on my website as well that are often very workplace related because that's where I specialize. But it's been a pleasure. I hope it's been helpful.

I will read the comments afterwards as well. So if there's and and maybe I can actually go in and run and stop sharing. Nina, that's absolutely wonderful.

Thank you. I love this. Learned well, I've always learned a lot talking to you, but obviously that was the concentrated form. That's wonderful. And we've got lots of questions and we've had lots of people commenting and some of them just an absolute delight. Let just start with look, this one from the book ends. Great presentation. Aw. Aw. It's just very I'm just glad it's very, very nice. And yeah. And I feel like I might have just cut your break break short as well. No, no. I've been here very peacefully. And hopefully we'll surely be able to show our videos in the way that we hoped. We tried to show them earlier and we showed for some people, not others. Yeah. But we may have that that may have been the thing I was sorting out.

Comment from focus Decarta organized management, learning how to do things differently is a way that works just for us is so important. Have to obviously shout out to May, he says I've donated, I hope more people do too. Yes. Yay. Right. Thank you. Talking of donations, you've donated your time to do this. Thank you. And thank you for sharing everything. And but as a charity, we have very little money. I think I've said it earlier, you know, we it's we honestly, every month is tight. This is extraordinarily difficult. And thank you No. For you Thank you organizing this conference. I know it's a very small thing thing.

It it A lot of effort into it into it. A lot of stuff behind the scenes behind the scenes. So I think it's Obviously, not on mine. Your effort in creating this presentation. We have a lovely comment. It's actually on that field from Star Walker. All of you who bought this conference resolution, thank you. There's a lot of people, but yeah, there's a lot of people and so thank you. Right, we've some questions so let's throw those out for you. You don't get let off the hook that easily. The someone sent in, it's a very nice question, it talks to heart of some things. I love a new book. Oh, stationery. Love a new notebook. How do I stop buying these things I can't afford?

Yeah. So So The thrill you're actually looking for from the notebook isn't a notebook. Right? It's the novelty. It's the newness of it. So So There's a few things you can try try. So you probably already have a few notebooks that are either half used or they're not even used. So you can go and dig those up and and, like, make them feel new. Or if you got pens that you really like, but, like, putting them back into the the the packaging again and just, like, create that sort of novelty about them again. You can set a budget for it as well. Right? So it's not that you all have to stop buying notebooks. Notebooks can still be useful. They are useful tool to write things in, but maybe you wanna limit how much you're spending on it. It is.

And find because it's about novelty. So maybe it's about finding other free novelty as well, right, Changing around your workspace. And this is the beauty of kind of understanding what it is that we like about notebooks. And with notebooks and stationery in general, I'd say it's a lot of it is about novelty. So what other novelty can we create? It it then if you understand that, it helps you kinda go, okay. What did it what do I need to do? For me, it's changing my workspace. Like, I have to move my desk around now and again. I just can't sit for years just staring. I can sit for a year maybe, but not. No. I have to do something different and just, yeah, change it a little bit. Yeah. And you.

Remember, like, you are not addicted to stationery, which is something I hear a lot. You you are just loving that novelty of things. So what other things can you do that may be not so expensive or doesn't take up as much space that feels like novelty?

Does that make sense to you, Henry? It does make sense. And also, I think it's an expression of there's a moment of peace when you try to get the new to do system, get the new notebook you like, this one will be different. I can relax for a moment and.

Have peace that the new thing will solve it. Yeah. Which obviously isn't gonna be isn't gonna be the solution, but Well, and this is the thing with ADHD brains as well. Like, that's what we call ideation. Like, the idea of something is way more addictive than the actual thing. Like, the idea that something is going to change something for us, and it's gonna be the solution, and I'm finally gonna be able to do all the things or, you know, I'm gonna be a good student or I'm gonna lose weight. That's what we're, if anything, addicted to. Right? And it is very alluring, but understanding that as well gives us a bit bit more of a choice, I think.

That does. And thank you. How do I stop self compassion turning to letting myself off the hook completely?

Yeah. So there is that thing you often see that juxtaposition with clients in in coaching as well, where they they know that they're hard on themselves, and they know they should be kinder to themselves. But, actually, when we've operated for a long time by just kind of pushing ourselves and trying to beat ourselves up, then it's actually really scary of of letting that go. So it's we need to we need to sorry. I'm, like, losing track of the question.

We we need to understand I like like the reality of people with ADHD. Right? Yeah. Like, I've started talking about a thing. I'm now on that thing. Oh, now I can't remember the thing. Wait. I've got a plan. I'm gonna keep talking. I'm gonna hope that I remember the thing. Yeah. It's just gonna it's gonna But you were very good to, like, admit it, and there's a nice Oh, yeah. No. I of reality.

I completely stopped the the the sort of pretending, and I do this when I train as well. Like, if you just need to put your hands up and and own it. I mean, also, I mean, you're probably similar. We are now in environments where it's much more acceptable to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not always as as easy.

For people in work environments, for example. Exactly. I'm very lucky. I live in a predominantly neurodivergent friendly bubble. Yeah. And if I go into another environment like, let's say, the political one, oh my You do suddenly realize that not only are people not going to be generous or not not not going to allow that thing, the difference or challenges, they're going to take advantage. Yeah. They're going to use that opportunity to try and devalue your point, what you're doing, and that's hard. Yeah.

But I find it easier to spot that now as well, and I'd like to call it out if I can. And the self compassion thing has just come back to me as well. So what.

I was going to say about And for the audience, and I was going to tell you, we then tangented ourselves, but the other question was how do I stop self compassion turning into letting myself off the hook completely? The idea that I just go and actually this cuts to the point that's going through many in government at the moment, which is people get an ADHD diagnosis and they just live off the benefits from now. They give up. They just go, that's me. I can't do nothing. I'm done. And so how.

And that that is that's essentially what this is about as well. Right? So it's not a free pass. It's just like, oh, I gotta be kind to myself. I'm not gonna do anything from now on. I just need to accept myself myself as I am. And now I I think accepting yourself as you are is a very, very good strategy. But it's if you imagine how maybe a a a coach or even a friend would talk to you, they would be encouraging. They would be firm. But but it's not about shaming. Right? We don't need that part. We can still want to do things and achieve things without that harshness and the shaming. So even when so if we are thinking, well, I just gotta make myself do things and then go, actually, no. I just need to be kind to myself. That's great.

But we can still then say to ourselves, this is hard. I understand why this is hard, but I can I can give it five minutes? I can give it a go. It isn't self compassion similar to what you said about, like, workplaces. Like, it isn't about lowering the bar. It's dropping that whip. Right? The thing that we hit ourselves with. So you can actually be clear. Like, none of us work any good. Any any good? Yeah. We don't work very well in those conditions. Right? That's why we don't like bosses who are like that. So don't treat yourself like that. You're not going to work very well.

Wow. That's such a good like, would you the way you treat your your internal voice, would you accept a boss like that? And I mean, I think for many, one of the challenges of living with neurodivergent is that we end up with a very negative voice and being awful, being brutal. When I think about the compassionate part, I think about the compassion on understanding where the problem lies. So there are things for us that are a molehill for others and a mountain for us. And if we evaluate it like a molehill and go, oh, I'm struggling to go over this molehill, we're going to feel really awful about ourselves. If we recognise I have ADHD.

This is going to be a really difficult problem, it is a mountain for me, then I get the crampons and I treat it in the reality that it is. And that means, a way of looking at that is I'm being compassionate to myself knowing that that is a mountain, knowing it is much more difficult and I treat it as such. The complexity part is that, like all humans, we're perfectly capable of making a mountain out of the molehill and that's the Us part and we're having to work out where those, you know, that self awareness And the lines are and the boundaries are, yeah. You know, I'm just making a big fuss about nothing and it's an all me problem. Just need to I need to push myself and do that, whereas this is something that And that's that.

Where that, like, the principle of getting stuff out of your head fits in so well here. Right? Because in our head, a, things move really, really fast in our head. So million miles an hour, we we we're not even noticing all of the crazy stuff that's going in on there. And that's this the self critical voice as well can wreak havoc in there if we're not getting ourselves out of our head. So with your example as well, like, use other people, speak to other people. It's not just about accountability. Sometimes it is just like verbalizing it. So many of us are verbal processors. Processor. Processors. If you haven't come across that expression before, it's basically where you need to speak in order to make sense of what you're thinking. So it's.

And if you hear that for the first time, you're going, oh my god. That makes so much sense. Yes. That makes a lot of sense to all of us. So even if you don't have people around you to talk to, I just encourage you to talk out loud. Like, if you're going on a walk, just, like, talk your thoughts out loud. It's a great opportunity as well to catch that self criticizing voice because when we're saying it out loud, we're more likely to, a, slow down so we can hear our inner voice, our inner critic, and, b, we can sort of take the thought to court, which is an expression borrowed from another amazing woman in the space. It takes the thought to court and really kinda go, well, is that true?

If we're saying some really derogatory things about ourselves, then we get an opportunity to actually question that when we get stuff out of our heads. It's it's one of those things that works universally very well. We said, you know, having spoken a lot about how this is about individuals and personalization, which it absolutely is. There are such few things that actually are universally good things, but that's one of them.

Yeah. And I think we are all unique individuals plus ADHD. You know, the strong understanding of ADHD, that commonality. That's why we're coming together today. We're learning from each other. But there is this layer that we are all individuals, unique individuals as well. And let's go through that filter for when we're thinking about what makes difference. And a unique person plus their job is a unique thing. I've got to leave you. We're out of time. You've been amazing. You are always amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you do for the charity as well.

I'll catch up with you when you've recovered from this, I think. Thank you. But you do such great work. Yeah, jog on with the good stuff, I'll catch you on the other side.

Thank you. Alright, Tina. Thank you very, very much. Thank you.