Stop & Smell the Roses: Remembering to Live when Living with ADHD
You know how it happens. You get your diagnosis and you start the research. Before you know it, you’re in such a search for tools and strategies to help you with your ADHD that you forget to live your life.
This show is our reminder to you of a few things. First, you don't have to do everything at once. In fact, you might find you adapt more quickly when you research less, try fewer new tools, and slow down your ADHD adaptation.
Second, it's OK to say no to things. In fact, you might just find a sense of excitement that comes from letting go of obligations.
Third, well, Pete has a thing about time blocking.
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright and I am here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Oh, hi Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
How are you?
Pete Wright:
Isn't this an excellent start to our day?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right?
Pete Wright:
Those who are listening in the livestream, they got to hear a lot of technical foibles today.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
So many technical foibles.
Nikki Kinzer:
And the end result is I am recording.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding, which is exactly what we want. This was one of those conversations we're going to have today that was suggested to us by our dear missing friend this week. She's on vacation, Melissa, DiscordMom. She suggested we do this, and I thought, "Okay, we'll do that. It's a good idea." I didn't really think much of it until I started prepping for this show, and I realized I have strong feelings. I did not recognize just how strong my feelings were about all of this.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and it's interesting, because I was prepping for the show and I'm thinking, "Oh, I am so excited about talking about this."
Pete Wright:
I know.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
There's a lot to get through, and so I'm very excited to be digging into this. We're talking about, she called it stop and smell the roses working title, which I might as well make the actual title.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think so.
Pete Wright:
I did call it in the livestream a rose themed intervention. So-
Nikki Kinzer:
That's good.
Pete Wright:
We'll see kind of where it goes, but I'm very excited to talk about this. Before we do that, head over to takecontroladhd.com. You can get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list and we will send you an email each time a new episode is released. You can connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest at Take Control ADHD, but to really, really connect with us, head over to our Discord community.
The ADHD Discord community is great. It's super easy to jump into the general community chat channel. Just visit takecontroladhd.com/discord for that open invitation and you'll be whisked right over. You can sign up or sign in. If you are looking for a little bit more and want to see the double secret, triple secret channels that are for our members, you just have to become a patron.
Patreon is listener-supported podcasting. With a few dollars a month, you can guarantee that we continue to grow, that our community thrives and you can be a part of the vast array of supporting members in the ADHD Discord community.
I've heard it is like magic. When you sign into the general community, you just see one or two channels and then you become a patron and connect it to your Discord account, and boom, so many channels, so many channels show up. So, very excited about that. I think you know, Nikki, what comes next-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Right? How excited I am that it is once again time for me to talk about TextExpander. Oh, TextExpander, these fantastic supporters of the ADHD podcast. I adore TextExpander and they're back, because you told them to come back. You would know, if you were a patron and showed up to Coffee with Pete once a month where we talk about tools and technology, every single month somebody comes up and says, "Hey, I finally wrapped my head around TextExpander and it's amazing." So, that's why you check out TextExpander.
It is an incredible invisible tool in my tool chest. It's just always there running in the background. It's just waiting for me to type a snippet, a few keys on my keyboard, and then, boom, it just expands into a lot of text.
So, here's how it works. You store texts that you type often and you put it in the TextExpander library and you assign a snippet to it. So, a snippet is just a few keys that you type. When you type those keys, it expands the text that you type off, and so that you don't have to retype it or risk errors or risk missing something important, it's just always there when you need it.
This month, you know, Nikki, I go through my TextExpander library looking for something new to talk about, and I realize there's a thing that I haven't talked about regarding TextExpander that is a fantastic snippet that I didn't create, I got it from someone on the web. It is an Apple script snippet that works with tabs.
Now, I know you're a tab person, right? You love tabs on your browser.
Nikki Kinzer:
What do you mean by tabs?
Pete Wright:
On your browser. You open a lot of tabs-
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pete Wright:
When you're researching something.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Then I'll save them. Bookmark them.
Pete Wright:
You'll save the tabs as bookmarks.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right, okay. So the way I research, and people ask me all the time, how do you use tabs? Especially people in this community, "Oh, I open 100 tabs. I constantly have 100 tabs. I've got a friend who has 100 tabs open in his primary browser and another 100 in a secondary browser, just because the first browser started to slow down." So, hundreds of tabs. He says, "When I research, I open a new tab and then I leave it there until I'm ready to come back to it." I thought, "Well, I don't do that. I open tabs and then I close them," but I forget a key step and it involves this TextExpander snippet.
So when I'm researching, I usually have a note open and I'm writing in this note, and I look at my browser and I read the tabs. This snippet allows me to go into my note and type STDUML. It's a weird snippet, don't know why it's called that, but if I type in all caps, it goes to my open browser and creates a bulleted list of the titles and links to all the pages that are currently open in tabs, and then I close the browser.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow, that's cool.
Pete Wright:
That's all it does. It lets me just capture in a list all of the tabs that I have open. I grab this snippet from ThoughtAsylum and it works like a charm. I have one version of it for Safari, which is my primary browser on my Mac and one for Chrome, which is my secondary browser on my Mac, and it just lets me capture tabs. That keeps my desktop clean, it lets me know exactly where my research stands at any given point and it's all thanks to TextExpander. It is a beautiful way to automate the research process for me and capture the tabs I need when I need them.
TextExpander is available on Mac, Windows, Chrome, iPhone, and iPad. For listeners of The ADHD Podcast, you can get 20% off your first year of service. Just visit takecontroladhd.com/TextExpander and you will be whisked over to our page on their site where you can get started. Get 20% off your first year. The way we work is changing rapidly, make work work the way your brain works by saying more in less time and with less effort using TextExpander. Our great thanks to the TextExpander team for sponsoring The ADHD Podcast.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is time to stop and smell the roses. So yes, it's sad that Melissa had this great idea, and then this happens to be the week that she's on vacation that she can't join our conversation, but she's here in spirit for sure.
Pete Wright:
She's actually here in Discord, but she's showing up as a little moon asleep in our member chat, our livestream chat, so I don't know if she's actually listening.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah, well, hopefully not. Hopefully she's having some fun. Yes, but this topic, yes, it's about stopping and smelling the roses. It started off with there is so much information and resources around improving your life, that self-improvement.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I mean, there's a whole section in the bookstore around self-improvement.
Pete Wright:
Self-improvement, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Whether you have ADHD or not, a lot of information is thrown at you. It was interesting, because I was just talking to somebody recently about when you're diagnosed with ADHD for the first time, the doctors will give you maybe a little bit of information, maybe give you a pamphlet, they'll prescribe you some medicine and then you're on your way. They don't really talk a whole lot more around of just what it is, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
So, there's tons of books and webinars and podcasts like us. These are all great information resources, but it can be a lot and it can be really overwhelming of knowing where to start, especially when you feel like everything is important to know right now. Do you remember a long time ago we were talking about something and I made the reference of it's like having a bunch of tennis balls being thrown at you at the same time?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's still what I see is information around distraction, focus, procrastination, time management, memory, emotional disregulation, all of these things are just being thrown at you. What she was saying and where her idea was coming from is that we really allow this desire of self-improvement and rigid structure to be our life, it defines who we are. So we're constantly looking for information on how to do things different, or how to actually not do things different, but fit into what we think neurotypicals need us to fit into.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Does that make sense?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Is that how you kind of saw this?
Pete Wright:
Well, that's the kind of the whole lesson that we are being taught in school and work, and all the accommodations that we get, aren't they designed to level the playing field so that we fit in a neurotypical world? Yeah, I think that is the initial effort that we all sort go through after a new diagnosis. How do I find a way to feel normal?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and then it's frustrating, because then the symptoms of ADHD come up when we're trying to look for this research, because then there's this perfectionism thing that happens. A lot of times I call it all or nothing thinking. It's a trap, because in our mind, so many things are going on in the mind and everything has to change and we all need to do it right now. I love in the notes, Melissa had put, "You have a goal to be the best ADHD ever. You want to just take-
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to master ADHD.
Nikki Kinzer:
"I'm going to master it, and I have to do everything right all the time." It's interesting, because she talks about employing every app and strategy and ADHD trick in the book to keep a tight hold on you and your schedule, and this belief that if you loosen it, even just slightly, everything's going to fall apart and you're going to be considered a failure to yourself and everyone around you. It's a terrible way to live when you're always feeling like this burden is holding you down and you're not good enough.
Pete Wright:
You mentioned the tennis balls coming at you. Trying to hold 100 tennis balls in your arms at any time is fruitless, you're never going to be able to hold on to all of those things. That metaphor really rings for me. I can hold one tennis ball in each hand, maybe two. I can hold them reliably and consistently, but I can't hold 100, and I've learned this in many ways the hard way.
I go back and forth between when I want to try a new to-do system, I try all the to-do systems at the same time to see how they work in any given time, but once I'm done, I pick one and I hold onto it zealously. It is a long time between trying out new systems for me, because that's one tennis ball I can reliably count on and hold onto.
I think that's part of the thing that you get through when you realize, okay, I could try all the ADHD accommodations that I can come up with, but I can live my life with just a few. I can live my life if I'm mindful and practice just a few, I don't need all of them all the time.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's so true. I was talking to somebody in the GPS group recently, and one of the things that she was concerned about is that she had a lot of things going on and she was afraid that she was missing out on some of the resources of GPS, because she didn't have the time to really dig into some of the information that we have available to our members.
Something that I said, and it's very similar to what you're saying, is that just focus on one thing. So if there's one thing in your planning system that you feel isn't working as well as you would like it to work, just look for that. Don't feel like you have to know the whole system or that everything has to be this way or that way, just focus on what you need right now and don't focus on anybody else, because there's also this tendency. This is what she said, is that, "I'm in GPS and I'm looking at everybody and it feels like everyone's working and doing their thing."
I'm like, "Yeah, but they're not all working in the way that you think they're working. They're working exactly like you, they're just taking pieces and figuring out where they need to be at that moment. Some of them are following the process and some of them are still on a certain step. So don't compare yourself to other people and don't compare yourself to other ADHDers, because it's just not fair. Really focusing just on what you need and what works for you, because you're never really going to get the full picture." I mean, what you think isn't necessarily really true, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, of course. Right. Because there is a little bit of the Instagram complex with a tool like GPS, with a service like GPS or with the Discord community. I think one of the nice things about Discord is that people I think are more vulnerable in this community, because it's sort of protected.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
We know that the people who are in here are all in here for the same reason, but it's really hard when you just start researching not to get the Instagram feeling, that everything that you're getting from people on TikTok and Instagram who are presenting their ADHD, the way they're presenting it aren't already masters of their ADHD.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right.
Pete Wright:
But the truth is much more complicated. It doesn't mean that what you're seeing right now isn't a snapshot of their experience of perfection, but it does mean that when the camera turns off, they're probably in as much disarray as you are at any given moment, from any given moment to any given moment in the future.
I think that's really important to remember to give yourself space and freedom to actually feel the way you feel and not resent all the tools that don't work for you right away, and not resent the things that you aren't able to do today because you're so busy trying to master ADHD.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That, I think, is the setup for this for me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, and I also feel like that next step is also, and this is not a linear process at all, because you're going to go in waves of it for sure, but that acceptance of where ADHD affects you. Sometimes it can be louder on certain days than it will be on other days, and we have to look at it as you as a whole person.
If you didn't get a good night's sleep, if you didn't have healthy food that day, you didn't get any exercise, your ADHD's going to be louder. Even with medication, it's all of the stuff that kind of goes in together. It's something to realize, because I think if you can see that, okay, let me separate this ADHD from who I am as a person, because you're not a bad person because you didn't have a good night's sleep and you're on edge. That makes sense.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
It makes sense that your ADHD is a little louder today or that you're in a situation that you're not comfortable in, and so you tend to shut down, or you're facing a list of things to do and you don't know where to start and it's overwhelming. That is the ADHD speaking up, right?
Pete Wright:
Right, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
One of the things that you have said, and I love that Melissa put this in her own research, is that it's not a moral failure to not get things done. I want you to expand on that, I want you to talk a little bit more about that.
Pete Wright:
If you haven't experienced this and you're getting your handle on ADHD, you will, right? Let's say you're exploring time blocking and you're exploring managing your task list across time and trying to figure out what makes the most sense, when you don't get everything done that you committed to yourself that you were going to get done, it is just a slight left turn to go from, "Oh, I didn't get everything done," to, "I'm a bad person for failing myself and the commitment that I made to myself that I would get this done. I am a bad person."
I haven't met anybody trying to live in partnership with their ADHD that hasn't felt this way, that you just feel like I have failed morally, because I failed to get this task done or I have let somebody down, or I missed an appointment or I missed a meeting or I was late or missed picking up my kid. My kid had to call me from school to remind me to come get them.
All of those things feel like moral wrongs, and they're not. They're not moral wrongs. You're not a bad person because you dropped the ball on a calendar event, you dropped the ball on a meeting. You're a human being and humans are complex organisms and you've got to let that good bad conversation go. The reality is, what it's going to mean to your life is you might have something to catch up on, you might have to eat a little crow and say I'm sorry, I screwed up, and then it goes away.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
It goes away.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
99.9% of the time if you're able to own up to the fact that you screwed up and now it's time to reschedule a meeting, it goes away. That's what I mean.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's about moving forward. It's like, okay, this happened, but I can move away from it, I can move forward. I think that sometimes a lot of ADHDers are so stuck in the past and what they've heard and seen and felt, that it's hard to think that, oh, maybe there's a different way. Maybe there's a different way not to only do this, but a different way of thinking about it. So it's not necessarily, oh, next time I will get that thing done, it's maybe next time I put too much on my list and I need to be a little bit more realistic about what I can get done in a day. So, we're shifting our mindsets around it.
Something that KC Davis said when she was on our show is care tasks are morally neutral, mess has no inherit meaning. When you look at a pile of dishes in the sink and think I'm such a failure, that message did not originate from the dishes. Dishes don't think, dishes don't judge, dishes cannot make meaning, only people can. I think that's really, really powerful.
I think with ADHD, I know that people have probably heard this before, but I think it is always worth shouting at the top of the mountain. You are not broken and you do not need to be fixed. You're not a piece of furniture, there's nothing wrong. We all have different ways of how we process, how we think, how we get things done, what we can get done, so it's very important for people to know that.
Pete Wright:
This is a good question though. I've heard this before and I've run into this talking to others who disagree, that your ADHD doesn't define you. But a lot of people live their lives believing that ADHD does define them, that every waking moment is somehow ruled by their relationship with ADHD. What do you say to that?
Nikki Kinzer:
I would say that that's unfortunate, and it's probably something to keep thinking about if it's in the sense that it's really pulling you down, right? Because if you're always looking at your ADHD and you're saying, "This is who I am," and then the next sentence is, "I'm a failure, I can't do anything, I'm not good enough," I guess is what I'm trying to say, that's not going to serve you.
I think that ADHD affects every aspect of your life, absolutely, but it's also really important that we focus on just not the strategies and the things that can help you, but we really focus on how does it affect me and how do I accept that that's what it is, and be able to find joy and still be happy. Does ADHD make certain things harder? Absolutely. So it's important that you pick the right job, that you pick the right partner, that you've got the people around you who support you and love you no matter what.
So I think it's a part of you, but I don't want it to define you, because it's not who you are as a person of how caring you might be, how compassionate, how kind, because the things that ADHDers forget to do or are hard to do, it's not the intention to hurt someone, that's not what it is. So, I think it's important that you acknowledge and you manage your ADHD and navigate through it, but I would really encourage somebody not to have it define you.
There's too much in life, and life is too fragile. I mean, I had a terrible experience in the last couple of weeks, and unfortunately my 17-year-old daughter had to face how fragile and how quickly life can be taken away. That is always a reminder of find and do the things that make you happy. If you're in a bad job, start looking for a new one.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
If you have toxic people around you that aren't supporting you, I would start thinking about maybe hanging out with some different people.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
We get to write our own stories, and that's what I would say. Yeah, you have ADHD, but you know what, Pete? The first thing I think of when I think of you is not your ADHD at all. It's there and we talk about it every week, but I wouldn't say, "Oh yeah, my great friend, Pete Wright, oh yeah, he has ADHD. Just want you to know that."
Pete Wright:
Yeah, Pete ADHD Wright. Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that's what he is. No, it wouldn't happen that way.
Pete Wright:
But that's a really important reflection, Nikki, too, because I think that is a reminder that the way people look at us is not the way we look at ourselves, right? That we have perseverative ADHD thoughts spirals that others don't see.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
They don't see until you call it out, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
I think that's ... okay, now I might be lying to myself. Yeah, probably people see ADHD in me from time to time, but that's not to say that it becomes, as you said, a defining characteristic of my identity. That's the important part.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, and I would still push back a little bit on that. When you're around people, and maybe you don't know if they have ADHD or not, there might be some signs that kind of come up when you know ADHD, because you live with it and you understand it. I not living with it, but certainly have a lot of knowledge around it with all of my work, I might be able to see it, but then I might not either, because it's such a hidden thing sometimes. I think that's where people mask themselves so well, that someone could be struggling and you wouldn't know that they're struggling. I don't know, I don't know. It's an interesting-
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because I'm just thinking, I can see spurts of my daughter, like, okay, that's definitely her ADHD, but then there's other times where, again, with you, same thing with her, I don't look at her and think, "Oh, she has ADHD, so this is why she does this, this and this." No, she's Paige and she's a wonderful young lady and-
Pete Wright:
Sure, yeah. Right. But it never really crosses your mind that she might be carrying around these exhausting feelings of overwhelm, that she's let something else drop or she hasn't turned in an assignment, that she's waiting to write an important email to a counselor, that whatever, she might not even know what those things are.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
They're just present. It's the feeling of, and I'll say this personally, because I know what it's like to feel like I've dropped or I'm about to drop the ball, I might always feel like the ball's about to drop, right? There might be a non-specific ball out there that's not even assigned to a specific responsibility that I have, and I still feel guilt and shame because it's about to drop, all the time, right? This is, again, you can't hold 100 tennis balls.
Nikki Kinzer:
You can't hold 100 tennis balls. I think it's also why community is so important around the ADHD community especially, because it's important to know that you're not alone in these feelings. Whenever I've done group coaching in GPS, that is always the thing, and in Discord, when we do happy hours and Coaching with Nikki and Coffee with Pete, those are the things that are always coming up, that, oh my gosh, I totally get what this person is saying. I understand that, they don't have to explain themselves, they get it. I think that that's where it's really important to rely on community. That's part of your navigating through ADHD.
What I think is so awesome about our community, Pete, I did a Coaching with Nikki yesterday and I hardly spoke, because this person brought up a question, and I was going to answer it and I said, "No, does anybody else have anything that they want to add before I say anything?" For 50 minutes, this small group of people were talking to each other about how they perceive it. It was positive, it wasn't all like, "Oh yeah, I hate that too." No, it was people speaking up saying, "Hey, have you thought of it this way? This really helped me when I went through something very similar."
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
I mean, I loved it. I loved every minute of it, because just seeing these folks embrace each other, that is a huge thing. So, find your community.
Pete Wright:
Well, so getting back to what I think Melissa's initial intent was with this conversation is rediscovering the joy of the things about you that you love that aren't necessarily ADHD, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right.
Pete Wright:
She wrote the joy of missing out, a DiscordMom original.
Nikki Kinzer:
JOMO.
Pete Wright:
Which I love JOMO, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
JOMO.
Pete Wright:
We've talked about FOMO and FOBO, now we have the joy of missing out, which I love.
Nikki Kinzer:
I do too.
Pete Wright:
Learn to find the exuberance that comes from saying no to something.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
That's really hard. Let's acknowledge how hard that is, especially with ADHD. If you happen to have the particular switch flip where you just have to please people and you just say yes to everything, it's really hard to retrain yourself to just say, "I can't do that thing right now. I don't have the available capacity to do that thing right now." Even if you might have the capacity to do that thing, you might not have the margin around everything else that you're currently committed to. We did a whole show on margin and ADHD.
Nikki Kinzer:
We did. Yeah, it was great.
Pete Wright:
How much space are you giving yourself around your existing commitments so that you can adapt to emergencies that come up in your life? If you just keep saying yes, eventually your margin gets very, very, very, very small-
Nikki Kinzer:
It does.
Pete Wright:
And you can't adapt anymore.
Nikki Kinzer:
But I also want to say something.
Pete Wright:
Why are you so excited? You're so excited.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because as an introvert, I want to talk to all the introverts out there, because I am one. I love being home and I am happy to be home, and I will stay at home for the rest of my life and I could be happy, but it's not healthy. So this is the exception that I want to say, is for all the introverts out there, say yes sometimes. Not all the time, but say yes to the things that bring you joy and refill that spirit in you, because that is so important.
I did this, I'm practicing what I preach. A couple weeks ago, I asked my friend if her and her husband wanted to go out on the boat with us, it was just the four of us. She's like, "Yeah, that sounds great. We're going to do Sunday fun day." I am so glad I did it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Being outside, being with great people, being with great food and drinks and just this beauty that we live in, it was just so much fun and I'm so glad I did it. So that to the introverts, do say yes sometimes, but to the things that bring you joy.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's the real trick, because if you're at capacity, if you have no margin, you're not saying yes to anything, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
No, no. Right, that's different.
Pete Wright:
What we're saying is you have to live your margin. You have to understand that there are things in your life that aren't related to ADHD that you might love. For me, it's cataloging movies, watching movies that I love or catching up on TV shows, or going on long drives.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
I love driving, I love to drive. Those are things I don't do when I know I'm not at my best. It's because I'm not saying yes to any of those opportunities, I'm just doing the responsibility stuff. It means my margin is very small and I start resenting my choices. I resent myself for not being able to do the things that I love to do.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
So, that's really important is finding that balance.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
So, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, so one of the other things that I wanted to say, and we can wrap it up here. One of the things that Melissa had wrote down for us to talk about, and I highlighted it, because I was like, "Yes, yes, yes, I believe in this so much." Giving your free time and downtime the same amount of importance as everything else on your schedule. This really relates to what Pete just was talking about with the margins. You got to balance that so that you have space to do the things you enjoy and also to do the things that you need to do.
She wrote time blocking gives you freedom. I know there are probably so many people right now who are shaking their heads, probably flipping us off right now, like, "No, it doesn't. It's structure, it's putting me in a box that I don't want to be in. It doesn't work for me. I can hear everything in my head, because I've heard everything."
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
What I love about this mindset is that it is so hard to put ourselves first when we are so demanded, right? We are in demand.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
We were talking about this last night in the Coaching with Nikki, and one of the things I said was make it a priority. Time block just 30 minutes a week to work on whatever it is that you want to do. I'm not even going to say work, it is to do whatever you want to do. We were talking about hobbies and things like that, and we talked about just letting your ADHD go free. Just do whatever, but block that time for 30 minutes a week so that you have it.
What happens is if we don't make the time for it, if we don't time block it, it then really becomes out of our control, because the weekend will pass and we won't have done anything that we really wanted to do, and we're going to feel, again, like we failed in some way.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
What I want people to think about is that even if you don't do the 30 minutes when you blocked it out to do, you will get reminded and you'll get to make a choice on whether you want to do that or you want to do something different, but at least you've been empowered to make that choice. But without it being in front of you, that power is taken away.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah. I think this is hugely important and I see this any time. I'm with you. Everybody who doesn't like time blocking comes back and says, "Well, it fails for me, because invariably I time block a whole week and then I come back and I've missed all of the time blocks, because I wasn't looking at my calendar, I'm not paying attention to it." That's okay. That's not a failure of time blocking.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
That's not a failure of time blocking.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's like what Ari Tuckman says, "The alarm did its job."
Pete Wright:
Yeah, the alarm did its job. You know what else? I think the problem is this, there is a switch that I think helps you get over the hump of time blocking, which is celebrate, one, the act of time blocking, right? The act of protecting time for both work and personal time that says I'm going to be intentional about what I do in this block of time. Two, celebrate even harder the act of rescheduling your time blocking.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, yes.
Pete Wright:
People celebrate time blocking, because it's great and it feels good. It feels like you're powerful and in control and you have agency, and then they screw up and they resent rescheduling. Until you fall in love with rescheduling at the same degree and intensity and passion that you fell in love with time blocking, you're going to screw up time blocking and feel bad about it, and there's no reason to do that if you just realize I'm protecting time so I can protect myself. It's okay to reschedule block time, it's really okay. I get kind of fired up about it, because I don't believe, I don't believe that time blocking is a failed system.
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't either.
Pete Wright:
I believe in it so, so much.
Nikki Kinzer:
I do too.
Pete Wright:
You don't have to time block every single minute of your time, absolutely not, but you have to protect the most important time. You cannot just live by your to-do list and say everything's going to get done, because work equals time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Tasks equal time. I feel like I'm ranting, I'm going to shut up.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, I love it. I love your passion, because I am 100% with you. I totally agree. Anytime that that is faced where, oh, I can't do time blocking, oh man, I push back. I'm like, "Wait a minute. Let's talk about why you think that."
Pete Wright:
How are you getting anything done?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you're just accidentally stumbling into successfully completing tasks if you don't actually tell yourself I'm going to take this time right now to do this thing. I just believe so deeply in it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
To the point of this show, if you're doing that, if you're protecting time to get the things done on your list that you need to do, whether that's study or write a paper or complete your TPS reports, what you're also doing by extension is protecting the time at home, protecting the time on your weekend so that you can do the things you love.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
So, you can smell more roses. Fall in love with rescheduling and you will smell more roses.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mic drop. Woo. That was great, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I feel strongly about that.
Nikki Kinzer:
The end. This is where we need to stop. I love it, great job.
Pete Wright:
Well, this was really fun. Deep, deep thanks to Melissa. I should say, yeah, that Melissa, she is on vacation, and talk about living her best vacation. She and her son are at Hersheyland and she's sending me pictures right now. They're on rides, I've got pictures with the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup mannequin wandering. She's just having a delightful time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Are you going to post those? I want to see them.
Pete Wright:
I don't get to post those. I'm not going to repost her pictures, she just sent them to me, but she should send them to all of us, because she is loving smelling roses that all smell like chocolate. That's what I am imagining right now, and so I'm thrilled that she's able to do that with her family. That is fantastic.
So in the spirit of vacation and go smell some roses, thank you everybody for hanging out with us and dealing with my passion on this subject a little bit.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love it.
Pete Wright:
I sure appreciate it. Thank you for downloading and listening to this show, thank you all for your time and attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to this conversation, we're heading over to the show talk channel in our Discord server and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
