12 Unhinged ADHD Hacks That ACTUALLY Work (don't judge til you try)

0:26Ultra running shoes are all about space. 12 ADHD hacks that actually work. And when did you put these into practice? So I think it's important to say, I don't speak about it too much, but before my ADHD diagnosis, I had a 10-year business career where I started two global social media brands, one called Unilad and one called Ladbible. And it was really interesting when I got my ADHD diagnosis, I really reflected on the conscious and subconscious hacks that I had implemented that enabled me to bypass, to get through some of the challenges that I was probably facing with things like disorganization and motivation and procrastination.

1:12So I really wanted to put a list together of the hacks that I used that helped me make Lab Bible, really helped me make this podcast too, to share with the audience in the hope that it will benefit them too. Right. And so there's 12 of them. 12 of my best hacks. Yes. Right. I've read through them and some of them are absolutely genius. They do get better as the list goes on. They're really, really good. Really, really clever. And then a couple of them are just outright bizarre. So yeah, some of them are a bit bizarre, but I think we're incredible problem solvers. And I think if we let our ability to think outside the box lead sometimes, we're actually capable of finding really interesting, unique ways to almost hijack our ability to not procrastinate.

2:03And looking back on what I was subconsciously doing through my business career and in the early stages of this podcast, I think they're, yes, they're definitely out of the box. But I promise you, they are incredibly effective. And very simple to implement. you could do these today. None of them require any money, no investment, just a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of ability to try something new. Right. Right. Should we start? Let's go. They're sort of written in code. So I'm going to say them. I have no idea what they mean. You're going to explain them. Yeah. And we're starting at number 12.

2:34Yes. And then they get way more interesting as the list goes on. Yes. Right. Which is very exciting. Okay. Right. Number 12. Pinch your thoughts. Yeah, so this is something anyone can do now. If you take an object near you, I'm going to use this pen for an example, and hold it out in front of you and really try and focus on this one object. Really notice the nuances of it. What color is it? What shape is it? How the light reflects off it? what texture it is, really intentionally try to focus your attention on this object. And by doing this, you're squeezing out all other distractions, other things that might be pulling your attention in different directions.

3:29It's like a bicep curl for your attention. And it's a really simple exercise. But if you do this often enough, you can train your attention to really focus on the important things that come up in our lives. Interesting. You're manifesting your attention into one thing. If you really, really hold one object out in front of you and focus on it and really notice the details, the minuscule nuances of that object, like the color, the texture, how light bounces off it, and you're using your intention to focus your attention. Right. And we take our bodies to the gym and work out our muscles to get fitter, but we don't always work out our brain.

4:17You can use little exercises like this to really strengthen that mental muscle that enables you to really tunnel vision your focus when it really matters. But do you think you could pinch your thoughts too efficiently? And you might miss your train stop by just holding out the pen like this for too long. Yeah, well, that's when hack number seven comes in, and we'll get to that. Right, yeah, yeah. Hack number seven is a real good one. It might change my life when I start implementing that. Right, should we go on to the next one? Number 11. Start with no. In all of our lives, people will ask things from us.

4:55They'll demand our time. And I think it's so easy when you have ADHD, particularly when you are fearful of letting people down, to make your default answer to people asking things of you as yes. So the advice is to start with no. If someone asks something of you, start with no. A common problem is, for example, someone would ask you, can you walk my dog on Thursday? And because people with ADHD crave stimulation, it's easy to say, yes, I'd love to walk your dog. and then you walk away from that situation. Maybe you're driving home and you check your phone and you remember that on the same day you agreed to walk this person's dog, you've also agreed to go out for lunch with a friend.

5:47And you think, oh my gosh, I've double booked myself. So you go into problem-solving mode. You think, hang on, I can probably drive to walk the dog at 12 o 'clock, walk the dog for 20 minutes, jump in my car, get to the restaurant, and be fine for that lunch appointment at 1.30. Then, of course, the day comes around and time blindness and overwhelm, everything that comes with that. There's a lot of things that you didn't account for, and you end up realizing, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to let these people down. And you often just avoid the conversation. Maybe you ghost their texts saying, where are you?

6:22You get a text saying, why did you agree to this? And it's just so much shame, so much disappointment, so much anxiety, because you've let people down because you've committed to too much. And all of this can be resolved if you really try to shift your knee-jerk responses from yes to no. Like, make no your start point because it's so much easier to say no and then maybe change it to a yes later on than it is to say yes and then think, oh my gosh, actually, I need to change that to a no. It's important for people to realize that they don't owe anyone anything. 100 you you have to protect your energy which is oh so finite with anyone but particularly with you have adhd and we can get in such a muddle in such this this this spiral of overwhelm and anxiety about letting people down when suddenly we've we've said yes to 10 things and we've double booked ourselves we've over committed and the mental exhaustion that comes with trying to wriggle your way out of this conundrum of over committing yourself when it can all be avoided if we just start with no.

7:34That's good advice. But it is also important to caveat that with you don't owe anyone anything apart from like loans and stuff for banks and you know, you still have to pay that back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So no to a bailiff often doesn't work. Yeah. This one's a great one because there's a prop. Yes. Can you tell me what it is? Number 10? So this is a dopamine menu. And a dopamine menu is a list of tasks that give you genuine joy and genuine dopamine. And it serves as a reminder of what you are genuinely passionate and interested and what you actually do for fun. Because if you don't have a visual reminder, it's really easy to just default back to doom scrolling or online shopping or whatever it is.

8:20And in my dopamine menu, I break it down into four categories. So starters, these are things that should be 15 minutes or less. So on my starter list, it's one minute of easy exercise, drinking a cup of coffee, listening to my favorite song, cuddling my dog, whistling, quick meditation, put on a face mask, stretch, watering my plants, or just doodle. And on my mains, which is 30 minutes plus, catching up with a friend playing an instrument walking my dog dive into special interests exercising journaling cooking or baking or having a hot bath now on the sides these are things that give me dopamine that can actually accompany me as I'm trying to do a boring task so things that can just be happening in the background almost acting as kind of like a body double that helped me get through a boring tasks.

9:17And on my side's list, there's listening to white noise, lighting a candle, playing a podcast, using a fidget toy, gamification, so making the task more interesting by gamifying it, or calling a friend as I'm trying to do the boring tasks. And I think it's also important on all of our dopamine menus to include dessert, something that we can almost treat ourselves from time to time, but you don't want to do too often because they're not the healthiest form of dopamine. And on mine, that is doom scrolling, online shopping, or binge watching TV. And I think it's so important for people with ADHD who have object permanence, who can forget sometimes actually what they do for fun.

10:00Plus, there's the whole masking things that comes into it. Many people don't really know who they really are and what actually gives them dopamine. So when we do have these moments of clarity, write them down on your dopamine menu. So you have a constant visual reminder of what actually you can do in your day that gives you healthy dopamine. Yeah. The menu doesn't have to be that big though, does it? It could be bigger if you want. This is a tiny one. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like for a dopamine menu, you see them, people carrying them around town, don't you? They're huge. Absolutely massive.

10:39The bigger, the better. Any other desserts you can think of in there? Probably playing computer games for me. Having a Nando's. Do Nando's sponsor the show yet? They should. Yeah. Actually, by the amount of times that you use Nando's, they probably don't even need to sponsor. They've got enough business. Right, so that's number 10. That's a good one. That's a really good one. Number nine, leave laptop charger at home. So when I wrote my second book, I realized that if I stayed indoors and tried to do a task based off like no accountability, it often didn't get done. If I took my laptop to a cafe and I left my charger at home, that gave me almost like a deadline.

11:25Because I know for a fact that if I'm writing, my laptop has about four to five hours worth of power on it. So it gives me this adrenaline rush of thinking, oh my gosh, I literally have four to five hours of writing before my laptop will turn off. So leaving your charger at home gives you this deadline, gives you the adrenaline to actually get through the task. And of course, if you're doing other things like video editing or watching stuff on YouTube, whatever it is, you've probably got less time, less battery. So depending on what you're doing, leave your charger at home and you give yourself this deadline, which will give you an adrenaline rush to get the task finished?

12:03So my problem is that I came up with a hack to counteract that hack, and that is just not charging my laptop. And then I go to the cafe, and it's got like two minutes left. And I go, oh no, I've got to go home again. So don't do that. But yeah, that's a really good one. That's a really good one. What work do you do in two minutes? Well, exactly. Not much. I can just about enter my password. And then I'm like, oh, it's time to go home because my laptop needs charging. So this hack is dependent on you remembering to remember to charge your laptop. Exactly. But it's true. If you have two hours left on your laptop, you're like, right, this needs, you know, you're allowing yourself only two hours, which means that you can sort of have a short burst because otherwise you could hyperfocus and be in the cafe all night, probably, and work too much, which is a problem.

12:53So you're giving yourself like a little window. I think you need that, don't you? Yeah, it really amplifies the hyperfocus when you know you only have a certain amount of time until your laptop literally runs out of battery. To the point where if someone, a friend, sees you in the coffee shop and taps you on the shoulder and be like, Alex, hey, how are you? And you know you've got 45 minutes left before your battery turns off. Leave me alone. I've got a deadline to meet. Well, that's when it might be important to enforce rule number 11, the no rule. You can say, no, get out of my face. I've got work to do.

13:29um right number eight

13:35um number eight complete a task before your favorite song finishes yeah self-explanatory really you know we've all got little tasks that are we're procrastinating over oh i just can't be bothered to empty the dishwasher i can't be bothered to hoover the flat i can't be bothered to pick up my floor drobe and sort out my clothes but if you just put on a song your favorite song whatever that is Christina Carpenter Beyonce Bruno Mars Eminem whatever it is you know that probably gives you about three and a half minutes to it gamifies it it like says right I've got three and a half minutes you've got your best bop on you're happy and nine times out of ten I swear it helps you get over that procrastination hump and it gives you that deadline again it fires up that adrenaline and it makes it fun yeah well another alternative is not only your favorite song but maybe favorite episode of ADHD chatter Yeah, and it's not Christina Carpenter, is it?

14:27It's Sabrina Carpenter. Yeah. Yeah, but it shows my knowledge. Well, Christina Carpenter might be someone else. She might be like a smaller artist. Yeah, if Christina Carpenter is listening, and you're very good, and you help me get through my songs. Yeah, Christina, she sounds like she could be very talented. But don't send your music here, because it's not going to be listened to or used.

14:51Right, so number seven. to-do list versus backlog so most people listening or watching will have the idea of a to-do list but it's so easy to confuse your to-do list with your backlog list you should only ever have three things on your to-do list no more than three and that's the mistake people trip up on they put everything on their to-do list and then they wonder why they get so overwhelmed when they look at this list with 15 things on it and it sort of puts them into paralysis and they end up doing not a lot like your backlog is is kind of everything that comes into your head oh i need to go shopping oh i need to renew the car insurance oh i need to clean the dishes like all of these little things they all they all go on your backlog and then you transfer some over to your to-do list but there's no more than there's never ever ever more than three things on your to-do list and when you just have three things on your to-do list it makes it a lot less overwhelming to actually get the things done.

15:53Right. Yeah. So it's all about sort of beating overwhelm, making it sort of bite size. Yeah. Yeah. I think I see it time and time again, people have this huge to-do list that is like longer than the great wall of China. And it's no wonder that you look at it and you have no idea where to start. You can't order them in any form of priority. And you just kind of go and default back to maybe doom scrolling on the sofa and you procrastinate and nothing gets done but if you just have like no more than three things on your to-do list at any given time yeah it makes it so much easier to visualize like actually starting one of them and getting through them and then when you knock one off you can then go to your backlog list and move one from your backlog onto your main to-do list so just keeping those two things separately your to-do list and your backlog separate really creates this this almost shield against the overwhelm?

16:48That's good advice. Really good advice. I was just thinking the Great Wall of China. Imagine having that on your to-do list. Yeah, each brick is a task. Yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Okay, that's number seven. So this one's really interesting and it doesn't make much sense to me, so you're going to have to explain it because I can't understand what it means, but it's an interesting one. Number six, slower mornings, not earlier mornings. The worst advice for people with ADHD, and it's something I see on social media and LinkedIn all the time, is to be more productive, you need to get up earlier.

17:25People with ADHD don't need to get up earlier. No matter what time we wake up, we are sluggish, we have brain fog, we are slow because it takes the ADHD brain time to accumulate dopamine and stack up enough dopamine in order to do progressively tougher tasks. So to assume that you're going to wake up earlier will solve the problem is just nonsense. You need to wake up slower. And this, again, the dopamine menu can come in handy here. Knowing what you're going to do and in what order when you get out of bed to incrementally give your brain dopamine that will slowly progress you onto the more challenging task later on in the day.

18:13Like wake up, perhaps make the bed. That's a slow task that should give you a little bit of dopamine. Brush your teeth. Again, the same thing. Walk into the kitchen. I think it's about really slowing the pace down and recognizing that you need to really start the day with really small, slow tasks, enjoy the dopamine that those give you, and then use that dopamine to do the harder tasks that will follow. So you don't think happiness lies at 5 a.m., cold plunges and ice baths? Sounds bloody dreadful to me. No, I mean, I honestly haven't met a single successful person in my whole life, let alone in my business career, who wakes up at 5am and jumps into an ice bath and gets into the gym at 5.30am, has their second coffee at 6, gets into the office at 7.30.

19:11It's all nonsense. It doesn't make any sense. It's almost like you're torturing yourself in trying to maintain this perfect routine that some guru who's probably trying to sell a course on how to be a successful business person or how to be more productive is selling. And I think it lacks self-awareness. I think for sure it might work for a few people, but it's not about like waking up early and trying to cram in so many things in a perfect order. It's about waking up when you want, when you can, and really realizing that you need to start slow because the ADHD brain needs to start slow because it wakes up and it is foggy.

19:49It is dopamine depleted. If anything, it wants to stay in bed. you just need to start the first task you do in the morning needs to be so small like for me i get up and i the first thing i do is i make my bed like it's such a simple thing but it just gives me that little bit of dopamine that enables me to then brush my teeth which gives me more dopamine which enables me to go upstairs which enables me to have a cup of coffee which gives me slightly more dopamine and before you know it the momentum has built and i'm sat on my laptop or i'm out walking my dog and you've got to start slow building dopamine up incrementally to give yourself the best chance of almost building that runway that will enable you to to go along it and build up that momentum to give you a productive day okay right we're in the top five so things are really heating up my sincerest apologies for interrupting your hyper focus but a quick word from our sponsor like many in the new year we want to turn over a new leaf looking to be more productive, more organized, and never late.

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21:29Give it a go and use the link in my bio for 30 % off. Just a note though, this code is only applicable on the web browser, not the smartphone. Back to the episode. These are ones I actually wish I knew when I was a lot younger, but I'm glad that I'm able to share them now. Yeah, because you put the work in, haven't you? Compiling a list of things that work for you that will work for other people if they're willing to employ them. So five, just one dish. Just one dish is using an example of emptying your dishwasher, but the same theory applies to anything in your life. It's, again, look at the dishwasher as a task you've got to do, emptying it, quite overwhelming.

22:08It's going to take a lot of time. I'm going to have to put all of the cutlery away in its right places, all of the plates away in its right places, all of the pans away in their right places. And before you know it, you're just like avoiding that task. It's too much. I don't have the dopamine to start it. But you tell yourself, like, rather than doing the whole task, all of that boring stuff, just one plate. Just pick up one plate. Tell yourself you don't even need to put it away. You just need to take the plate out of the dishwasher and put it on the side. because it's almost like tricking your brain into convincing yourself that it's a really small task.

22:43And again, it's like that habit stacking, it's that dopamine stacking. Getting a plate out of the dishwasher and putting it on the side, nine times out of 10, you're going to go all or nothing. You'll enter all or nothing mode and you'll be like, all right, I'm going to do the whole dishwasher now and I'm actually going to do it really well. It's just getting over that procrastination hump of thinking this is going to be dreadful to saying, actually, no, just getting one plate out, that's easy but when you get that plate out suddenly doing the rest is really easy too yeah yeah that's that's good advice there's nothing worse than a dishwasher is there's so annoying because you just want to unpack it really really fast but you also can't smash anything it'd be great just to sort of pour it into like a another sort of just one drawer maybe that hack should be just called just one drawer one drawer yeah i think it was rory sutherland yeah He said, why do we empty our dishwashers?

23:35You're literally taking stuff out of the dishwasher, which is all effectively already put away. It's just in the dishwasher. Why are we putting it in the cupboards? Just take the clean stuff out of the dishwasher when you want to use it. He said that dishwashers aren't to wash dishes, they're to hide dirty dishes, which I thought was really good. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, same as my shame shed, which is in my back garden, which is, you can't really open the door anymore because there's so much memorabilia from past abandoned hobbies. Had I opened the door now, everything would just flood out onto my decking.

24:09See, I reckon what's going to happen is you're going to clean out the shame shed. You're going to end up living in there and you'll have a shame house to make it bigger for yourself. Number four, this one, kind of spooky, scary hour. What the hell does that mean? Scary hour. So we've all got things on our, maybe they're on our to-do list, maybe they're on our backlog list, things that are just like, that is giving me zero dopamine. I'm really, really struggling to get started. Maybe that's renewing your car insurance. Maybe that's paying that parking ticket. Things that will just never get done unless we like really intentionally designate one hour per day to things that we think are scary.

24:55Like those, I would classify those as scary tasks. things that give us nothing and we say okay i'm going to give one hour per day to tick off the scary tasks and as soon as that hour finishes you drop you stop doing anything and anything that's kind of like incomplete it just carries on to the next day and then you carry on so if it takes like i don't know two hours to renew your car insurance because these things take time you don't try and finish it in one day you just do it in the scary hour if the hour runs out you drop it you carry on And the next day, it kind of rolls over. So it's just like just designating one hour per day to things that, the really horrible tasks, the scary tasks that are just absolutely boring.

25:32Wow. See, I thought scary hour was letting your spouse go through your internet history for an hour. Gosh, yeah. But that makes a lot more sense given that it's a hack episode. All they would see is just ADHD research, how to be a better podcast host. It would be such a disappointment. Yeah. New ADHD research, yeah, it would be very disappointing. Okay, number three, top three. So the bronze medal goes to RSD bracelet. So unfortunately, most people listening and watching will recognize the term RSD. It stands for Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria. I've written a whole book on the subject. It's such a big thing that holds so many of us back.

26:19It creates this irrational fear that everyone hates you a million times a day for no other reason other than you've sensed someone's tone of voice is slightly off or someone's got a slightly heavier footstep or whatever. Have you written a new book about RSD? I have. I have. Yeah. You can pre-order it now. It's called Why Does Everybody Hate Me? Living and Loving with Rejection, Sensitivity, Dysphoria. It's the book I wish I could read to my younger self. Yeah. Honestly. And it's one of the key strategies in that book is like when you are triggered, when someone says something to you that you've taken personally, when your boss asks you for a quick chat on a Monday morning without any context, and you instantly catastrophize and you think the world's going to end.

27:04Or your friend says they're too busy to see you and you think that they hate you and your entire existence is a nuisance to them. And you fill up with this internalized sadness or rage, but shame. that's the thing like every time it's this crippling shame and the hack is like to have a list of your positives on you at all times like it could literally be a physical list a bit of paper in your pocket the and we can't like not be a bit arrogant here like so many people with ADHD really struggle with self-esteem and truly believe that they are terrible human beings, heartbreakingly. And I think some people feel really uncomfortable about writing down a list of their positives and their qualities because they think, why should I do that?

27:55I don't deserve to, I don't have any, but we do. Everyone does. Like you're creative or you're a great problem solver or you're a great friend or you are a great musician or you're a great sports person, whatever it is, like you will all have positives. So you really have to really think about the positives, write them down. So when you are triggered, when you feel that intense emotional pain, you can just reach for it, you can read it, and it instantly soothes that emotional reaction. And of course, it's not always possible to have a list in your pocket. Sometimes what I find has really helped people in the past is you could have a bracelet on your wrist, and you can wear this all the time with charms on it.

28:34And each charm perhaps is a little logo or reminder of something that you're good at. Like if you're good at, if you're a musician, one of the charms could be like a saxophone, or if you're great at maths, it could be a calculator. If you're a great sports person, it could be a little running shoe, whatever it is, or a heart to remind you how much of a good friend you are. So the little things that will be quite ambiguous and incognito to the outside world, but when you're triggered, you can look down at your bracelet and see the charms and they will remind you of your positives, which will bring you out of the extreme emotional response that many of us experience when we are triggered by RSD.

29:13It's a good one. Yeah, that's quite nice, isn't it? See, I think having a list of my qualities in my pocket isn't enough. I need there to be a list of my qualities in everyone's pocket. And then I can sleep at night. But yeah, that's good. Make a list about what you believe are your strengths. Why not? I guess it's almost like manifesting as well, isn't it? It's like self-fulfilling prophecy. And heartbreakingly, I think so many people with ADHD have object permanence, which many of us know means that we just forget stuff exists if it's out of sight, out of mind. And, you know, there's lots of humor there as well.