Habits & Routines Vital to Planning: An ADHD Listener Q&A
We're talking about planning again and we're taking on your questions! Getting started, long-term planning, making transitions, and even AI tools are on deck for this week's show. The big topics:
How do you get started planning when you haven't done it?
How do you plan to plan?
Struggling with personal deadlines?
What if you’re struggling to make plans more than a few weeks ahead of time?
How do you plan for things that don't have concrete goals?
What do I do during transition time?
AI and how do I use it?
So... why TickTick?
Links & Notes
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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'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Happy post-Thanksgiving hallucinations, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know.
Pete Wright:
Oh my gosh. It was hard coming back this week. Harder than it's been in the past. I've found taking a couple of days off exuberant.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
I had went in with plans to say, "Okay, I've got down time on Thanksgiving. It's easy."
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
"I might open my laptop occasionally, knock a few things out. Yeah, it's easy." I did not do that.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Pete Wright:
I took a hardcore break. It's like-
Nikki Kinzer:
Good for you.
Pete Wright:
It was the power nap of vacations. Right? You know when you go to sleep at 2:00 in the afternoon, and you kind of wake up at 6:00, and you feel kind of hungover?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That was it. It was great, and Monday morning was hard.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
For all of those living with the post-Thanksgiving context shift blues, I feel you. It was hard. But today we're back. We're talking more about planning, and it's a Q&A.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
We haven't done a Q&A in a while.
Nikki Kinzer:
No. Let's do this.
Pete Wright:
You're excited about that. Yeah. You're excited.
Nikki Kinzer:
I am excited.
Pete Wright:
I can tell. I see.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love it. I would-
Pete Wright:
No. I mean, I see it.
Nikki Kinzer:
I would much rather do this than an outline ... so I'm good.
Pete Wright:
Not that it's self-serving at all.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know, but it's also getting to the point of what people really want. Right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
Sometimes I try to guess, and you try to guess. We think we're doing a good job, but we don't really know.
Pete Wright:
Who knows? We don't know.
Nikki Kinzer:
We don't know.
Pete Wright:
I think it's great, and it's important. I think we're in good stead. We are going to dig into those questions right away, but before we do that, head over to TakeControlADHD.com and 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 right there on the homepage, and get an email with the latest episode each week. You can connect with us on Facebook, or Instagram, or Pinterest, at TakeControlADHD.
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While you're at it, once you're a Patreon member at the deluxe level or higher, you get to join us for the livestream recordings of these shows. You get to hear all of the mistakes. People love mistakes, and burps, and stuff. That's all in the livestream. Really exciting stuff.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh my God. That was funny. I'm just writing notes about the show, going on my business.
Pete Wright:
I know. I was watching. I was mostly, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
And then all of a sudden I hear you talking about burps.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Mostly I just was trying to make you look up and see if you'd notice me. Just notice me. Notice me. What could I say?
Nikki Kinzer:
That is so funny. I noticed you, Pete Wright. I sure did.
Pete Wright:
Thank you. All right. Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast to learn more ... All right, Nikki. It's Q&A time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Are you ready?
Nikki Kinzer:
I am so ready. In fact, as you were doing that-
Pete Wright:
So ready.
Nikki Kinzer:
Beautiful introduction, I had an a-ha moment, so I'm ready.
Pete Wright:
Oh, good. Is it about the show?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, it is.
Pete Wright:
Or is it about what you're going to eat today?
Nikki Kinzer:
It's about the show.
Pete Wright:
Okay, good.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
Well, so we asked our listeners to share their planning questions, and I came back with a set of great questions that we're going to run through today ... Dear Melissa, once again, highlighting her just organizational prowess, has categorized the questions in four broad topics: getting started, longterm planning, transitions, and planning and technology. We're going to kick it off with getting started. Would you like me to read the questions, coach, so you can-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that would be really helpful.
Pete Wright:
Hit them out of the park?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
All right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you.
Pete Wright:
First question. "How do you start planning or making progress toward a goal when you haven't used to-do lists in forever, other than a grocery list? How do you even get started?"
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, so this is where I had this a-ha moment ... I'm going to ask you a question, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
What is your definition of planning?
Pete Wright:
To document somehow the steps, task. Organizing the work toward a specific goal.
Nikki Kinzer:
You got it.
Pete Wright:
Thank God.
Nikki Kinzer:
You did.
Pete Wright:
Whew, man.
Nikki Kinzer:
A+ work. Yes.
Pete Wright:
When I get tested on this show, it feels just like I'm in the eighth grade again.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. I know. I do that on purpose sometimes. Anyway, no. You have it, because when you were talking, and then talked about burping, was I was thinking is that, when I read this question, I'm thinking, "Planning. What is this? What does that mean to this purpose, especially if they've never used, or they haven't been using, a to-do list for a long time."
My definition is the same as yours. It's just a way to kind of keep track of your projects and your tasks that need to be done for those projects, but it's also about priorities. It's making sure that you're working on what you want to work on, and what's most important. Planning isn't necessarily guessing, or really doing any kind of decision making. Well, it is a decision. Hold on. That's not right ... You don't have to know everything to plan.
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right? You don't have to guess exactly how long things are going to take, and you don't even have to really ... do it longterm if you really don't want to. We'll talk about longterm planning. It's just an interesting thought is that, what does planning mean to you, and what does that encompass for you? Because it's a process. It's a system that we put in place. Right? So it's more than just a to-do list.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you said it for me. It's also buried in the question. Making progress toward a goal. Let's just take the goal as the only thing you know-
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
About what you're doing. Right? Start breaking the goal down from the end. Right? You know what you want it to look like. What are the things that go into achieving that goal? What are the things that go into those things that go into achieving that goal? You start being able to break it apart and sort of chunk it off based on what the end result looks like. I think that, to me, is a great place to get started.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
For example, if I know I have to take a trip in February to go to Colorado for a reunion. It's a grotesque number reunion. I don't like thinking about the number, but we'll get into that later ... I know that I have that trip to take. What are the things that go into taking a trip? Well, I could start with pack socks, but that's not really the most relevant thing right now. The most relevant thing right now is, how am I going to get there? Where am I going to stay when I get there? How am I going to get to the place where I need to stay once I'm in that city. Right? Those are the things that go into making those decisions, and those allow me to unlock new tasks like get online, buy airplane tickets, rent a car, find a hotel. All of those things start being illuminated as soon as you start with the goal, get to Colorado for this reunion.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
I think that's the thing. It doesn't matter how long you haven't used to-do lists. A to-do list is secondary to the entire process.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's just a tool.
Pete Wright:
It's just a tool.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
The issue is have a goal, and start breaking it down.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, and then you can decide how you want to organize it. What's the best way for you? Right? That's when the tools come in.
Pete Wright:
That becomes a values decision. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Like what are the things that are most important to you, and thinking about it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's a great place to start is figuring out what that one goal is, breaking that down, and then figuring out what are the best ways for you to keep track of it.
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. All right.
Pete Wright:
"Planning ahead sounds like a great idea, but I never seem to have the time to do it properly. How do you plan when you're going to plan when you stink at planning?"
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, so this is fun too, because ... there's a couple things here. One is that a lot of times people don't think they have time to plan, regardless of if they think they're doing it properly or not.
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right? Because it feels like the work is more important than doing any kind of planning for the day ... Take away if you're doing it right or wrong, because there isn't a right or wrong way to do it. Let's just put that to the side, because it doesn't matter. We do need to find time to do it, whether it's done great or poorly.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
But it doesn't have to take very much time. I'd be really curious to know what makes them think that they're not a good planner? What are they expecting of themselves? Because what I find is that people think that they're not good planners because they can't estimate how long things are going to take. They don't do what they say they're going to do. Something goes sideways, and then the whole day goes in a different direction. A lot of things that are out of their control. Right?
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
And expectations are always really high. I would dig in deeper about what makes you think that you're not a good planner, and start with the mindset, because we have to flip that and say, "Nope. You're a great planner."
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
It doesn't have to be done properly, because properly means perfect almost. Right?
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
And there is no such thing as perfect. If you see the value in planning your day, or the value of planning your week, then ... practice it, and see what works for you. Keep it simple, and don't make it too complex. Don't overcomplicate it. It doesn't have to be a two-hour process. It shouldn't be.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
It shouldn't be at all.
Pete Wright:
It should be living. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
That's the thing I think that is most important. When I look at my system, it's a living system. Yes, every day at 4:00 I go into that system, and I make sure everything's up-to-date for the next day. The fact is, my planning system exists to have tasks put into it and checked off in it throughout the day. Whether I'm using paper, or a computer system, or my phone, whatever, I'm constantly in it because that's where the documentation of my work is. I might see something else that I need to do in the day, and I'll add it to a new task, and I'll massage some things and kind of take two minutes to kind of make that work. I think you've got to get over the fact that planning isn't the end. Right? Planning is-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Is the road. Planning is the road you're driving on. Right? It's always there. It's the oxygen you breathe. Once you internalize that, you take pressure off the fact that you're not a planner. Sure, you're a planner. You're a planner if you've ever written a task on paper.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Be a planner. That's fine. Stop thinking so hard about it. Right? I think that's part of the thing. We work ourselves up to whether or not our plan is up-to-date, and our tasks are out of date, and what's going on. It's okay. It's okay. Everything's okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love that you're saying it's a living document, because I think that that's a living system. I think that's really important to point out, again, because it isn't just a one and done thing. It's not just a to-do list. It's a system that you've created, and that's what we do in GPS is we create the systems, and it is something that you want to continue to rely on and refer back to on how to direct yourself. Again, you don't have to be a ... future. What is it? Teller person.
Pete Wright:
Fortune teller?
Nikki Kinzer:
Fortune teller who tells the future.
Pete Wright:
You know, a future talker.
Nikki Kinzer:
Future person who has that intuition. You don't have to know it all. You don't have to know everything. I just love that you say that. It's like you're looking at it. You're massaging it. You're working with it every day, so you are. Yeah. That's planning. That's taking control of how you're spending your time.
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, next question. "I do okay when it comes to planning and completing tasks that have concrete deadlines that were given to me by someone else. Where I struggle is those things that I want to do, but they don't have real deadlines. Even if I give myself a deadline in my head, I know it's an arbitrary deadline I made up, so a lot of times it gets pushed back again and again. What can I do to help myself stick to my own personal deadlines?"
Nikki Kinzer:
This person has ADHD.
Pete Wright:
Really?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Because it's totally unfamiliar to me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah ... So-
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
This is how ADHD plays out in this person's life.
Pete Wright:
Yep, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
So that's what we have to understand is when you're planning, and you have ADHD, you're going to plan in a different way than someone that doesn't have ADHD, because they don't have the same things that drive them that drive you. External deadlines, or having a deadline, is an external motivator. It's an adrenaline push that's really important. Right? I'm going to say embrace that. Don't try to fight it all the time.
Now, I'm not saying that procrastination is the greatest thing to do either. I know that that also has a lot of stress, but where's the middle ground? That might be some practicing of figuring out what that is. If you know something is coming up, and you know you're going to work your best and your hardest at the very end, can we, I don't know, maybe start a day before than you would normally start? Just kind of embracing it, but then also taking care of yourself. I know it sounds kind of strange, but somehow we have to work with your ADHD and not try to fight it all the time, and that's what is happening here. There's a lot of fighting.
Pete Wright:
There's a lot of fighting. We're recording this right now at the end of November, a November is, as we have mentioned almost every week since it started, it's NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. This, to me, is what I think of when I think about this particular question. The fact that NaNoWriMo is a completely arbitrary self-imposed deadline to do a hard thing, to write 50,000 words in a month. For some reason, my brain really attaches to that, even though this is not a deadline set by anyone else.
This year in particular I'm not doing much by way of being a part of the broader NaNoWriMo community. We've got some people who are writing along in our community, which is fun, and I'm part of another writing group where we sort of sit. Everyone else in that writing group is way behind, and they're kind of changing the goals, and moving the goalpost, and saying, "If I just get to some point, really I can skip days." That's not how it worked for me at all. It's not how it works for me. For me, the 50,000 words is critically important to my achievement of the goal and to writing every day. Without it, it's not enough pressure for me to do it.
Yet, it's totally arbitrary. It's exactly the kind of goal that the listener question's talking about. It's completely personal, and yet I've been able to make a ton of room in my life to do this thing. I am trying to figure out what it is about this goal that has allowed me to rewire myself a little bit to consider it at the same level as an external goal given to me by someone else. Does that make sense?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the answers to those questions?
Pete Wright:
I have ideas, but I'm not going to ... I'm not sure, no. I'm not confident.
Nikki Kinzer:
I have ideas too. Right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
We don't really know for sure.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
But I do think that there's a couple of things that are happening. This is important, I think, also for understanding how ADHD works, is there is a level of high engagement for you. You like to write. You like to do this type of work, so because there's such a high level of interest, that helps. Because you have some accountability with your writing group, with our group, with the community itself that's organizing this, you have some kind of accountability that you're checking in, which is good. You're not just checking in with yourself, so those things are setting you up.
Plus, I think it's something that you just personally really want to do. Right? ... I realize, especially with inattentive ADHD, even if you really want to do something, it's still really hard to do it. That's where you need to have those external factors in, right? With the accountability, setting the time aside to do it. You really set yourself up for success here.
I think you made a decision. You made a decision on November first that this is what you were going to do, and this is how you were going to do it. You've said that in our Discord community. I think those factors carry you into now it's almost the end of November, and I bet you're really close to 50,000 words.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I'm at 67,000 words, so-
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, you're passed.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I'm almost finished with the book. I really am.
Nikki Kinzer:
Congratulations.
Pete Wright:
I think I'll finish it today. Right? Like it's-
Nikki Kinzer:
That's such an achievement.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. No.
Nikki Kinzer:
Everybody needs to ... give applause to Pete Wright. That's huge. That's a big deal.
Pete Wright:
Well, thank you. I appreciate it, but it's sort of an aside to this question, because I think it's really important to think about. What are the things that are in my control, and in listeners' control, to rewire how we see our own personal deadlines? Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, right.
Pete Wright:
Because there's got to be a way to think through the things that are important to us and make them as important to promote them. We need to promote tasks. Maybe that's the right word for it, promoting personal tasks to the level of importance. What's the sort of neurological wiring that helps us build the same level of enthusiasm, or fear, or motivation, whatever it is, to get those things done apace, because that's for sure missing. Of course.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, absolutely ... Yeah.
Pete Wright:
I mean, I might as well have written this question. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
I think about it all the time, the things that become-
Nikki Kinzer:
It's very common.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we have an answer, but I think it's important to think about the things that you do love to do, and the things that you do promote. For me, NaNoWriMo, but for you, whatever it is, and ask yourself. Maybe start writing. "What is it about this task that I love, and how can I apply it to tasks that I also know I need to get done, but maybe don't love so much?"
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Promote those tasks.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yep. I love it.
Pete Wright:
All right. Well, we're moving into longterm planning. Are you ready? This is a big shift, longterm planning.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm ready.
Pete Wright:
All right, here we go. "I always struggle to make plans, decisions, or commitments more than a few weeks ahead of time. Vacations, attending events, planning Christmas presents, you name it. When it's more than a few weeks ahead, it all feels so remote to me that I just can't make myself focus enough to deal with it, and I feel it's seriously limiting me in my daily life. How can I get around this?"
Nikki Kinzer:
Well ... I struggle with this myself. Last year, I bought a yearly calendar that was a circle. It's called The Round Method. You can check it out if you like. I've decided not to go that route this year, because, the format, it just didn't work for me. So yesterday-
Pete Wright:
You were very excited about it.
Nikki Kinzer:
I was, and I gave it 100%.
Pete Wright:
You did. You gave it the shot.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. I'm looking at it right now, and it's just a huge blob of mess.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yesterday, what I did is I ended up buying a yearly wall calendar. It's a whiteboard, so if I change my mind I can erase it. That was the problem with this one is that there was no erasing to be done on this board.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I don't love that.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's really hard. I'll tell you why I did this, and I've never done this until I started really researching more about longterm planning, because I think that this is an ADHD thing, but I also think it's a people thing. It's really hard to kind of see the future when we're in it now. Right? We're here now. We're in November. It doesn't feel like it should be. It's not Christmastime, but once December first comes, it's almost Christmas. Right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Time is weird. There's a factor to it that is hard to understand. I think, with longterm planning, my first recommendation is to get a yearly calendar that you can actually see all of the months together. You can actually see, okay, when do you take vacation? When are your holidays? For me, I'm using it for a business, because I want to know, when are we going to do promotional preps? When are we going to do the promotion? When is it launching? When am I taking vacation? When is Pete taking vacation? When is Melissa taking vacation? I need to be able to see that so that I can be prepared for it.
That's the first thing is I think a visual is really important. I know that these calendars are huge, and I was trying to find something that wasn't going to be the size of a kitchen. I mean, they're really big, but I did find one that I think will work. That's my first recommendation is you've got to see time. What do you think, Pete?
Pete Wright:
Well, I totally agree with you. I just posted in the livestream chat my favorite yearly calendar. It's a dry erase calendar. It comes rolled up. It is huge. I mean, it's designed to hang on the back of a door or something, but it's dry erase. It's The Focus Calendar from NeuYear.net, N-E-U Year.net. A direct is in there. It'll be in the show notes too. I just really appreciate how the calendar is designed, and the visual nature of it, and the flow of it. The fact that it's designed so that all the days kind of flow right in, and months flow into one another. It's really lovely, and I like the guys behind it. They're serious productivity guys. They think about the design of such things. I've used this for several years running, and I think very highly of it. I totally agree with you. I think there is something about, to me, the nature of longterm planning starts big.
Nikki Kinzer:
It does, yeah.
Pete Wright:
It starts on the wall. Right? Because until I can see, it's the same reason all my clocks in my house are radial clocks with arms, analog clocks.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Because I have to visually see what time chunks like.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Same thing with longterm planning. I have a really good sense of what the rest of the week looks like, but once I get more than a week out, I'm a little bit blind to it. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. I am too.
Pete Wright:
Everything's fuzzy, so having a giant thing on the wall that lets me dive into it is important. That's important to me. I also think that's one of the reasons. I have to tell you, I was a little bit dubious about the round calendar that you had, just because it's nontraditional. We're wired for this grid, and trying the new thing is great from a design perspective. Let's just see if it takes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
But, man, there's just something about how we look at time and dates that is pretty ingrained.
Nikki Kinzer:
I agree.
Pete Wright:
In what we do.
Nikki Kinzer:
I hear this a lot with paper planners and calendars. It's just wasn't enough room to write. It wasn't enough room to really see what's going on, so yeah. I totally went back to the traditional. It will fit. I bet it's similar. It will fit on the back of my door, which is a glass door, so I don't think that's going to work.
Pete Wright:
You just need to find something decorative for the other side.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Maybe a curtain or something.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Anyway, all right. That's what I would do.
Pete Wright:
That's it. That's it.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's the start of it. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
I think that's it. I think that you have to. This, it gets to that question. When it's more than a few weeks ahead, it feels so remote. It's just because, to me, I answer that question by a giant calendar that has the whole year on it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
That's just the way I do it. Okay ... "How do you plan for longterm goals that are amorphous, or when you have an atypical schedule, or you're planning for something that doesn't have a clear start or end date, like planning for a career transition?" Oh, dear ... What do you think?
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, so there's a lot of questions in this question. Isn't there?
Pete Wright:
I know, multiple questions. I have thoughts. This is good.
Nikki Kinzer:
Why don't you start with your thoughts first.
Pete Wright:
Okay. I think that part of the challenge is seeing an amorphous goal, or an atypical schedule, or not having a clear start or end date, and getting yourself stuck in a position where you don't believe that you have agency over those decisions. You have an amorphous goal. Make it morphous ... Give it shape. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
You have no clear start or end date? Try setting an end date. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Just try putting a stake in the ground so that you can work backward and get a sense for how long it'll take you to get to that point. Need to make a career transition? Just put a stake in the ground. Say 90 days out you want to be at a place where you can jump ship. Maybe you don't make it. Right? Maybe it's okay that you don't make that date, but at least you have something against which to plan, and I think that's where a lot of people get stuck is seeing something that doesn't have shape, and forgetting you're the one who gives it shape. You're the one. You have control over this. I do this all the time. I know from where I speak. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Right.
Pete Wright:
You have agency in setting dates for the things you want to do. You absolutely do. When I hear people say, "I can't do it. I can't do it. I don't have time to do it," how do you know until you set the date and see if you can start lining up pieces? It may not work, and that may suck, but at least you'll be kicking the ball down the field a little bit. Right? Otherwise, you're just stuck. That's my-
Nikki Kinzer:
I love it.
Pete Wright:
Low rent two cents.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think it's great, and I'm so glad you answered it first.
Pete Wright:
Oh, good.
Nikki Kinzer:
Such a good answer. Yeah, no. I agree with everything Pete said ... No. I have something to add, I'm sure.
Pete Wright:
Okay. I'm sure. Let's see if you get there.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm sure I do.
Pete Wright:
All right. Plane's taking off.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. No, I do agree with everything that you said. Basically everything you said. I think that you set a little bit more time with it then. What is this goal that you are trying to achieve? Let's focus on just one goal, and not every goal. I think that that's important too, especially if you're talking about career transition. Let's say you're thinking about career transition, but are you also, at the same time, wanting to have a five-day week exercise plan? Are you going to lose 50 pounds in this year?
When you start to have too much going on, then ... your focus is so spread that nothing really gets done on any of them. I would also look at that, is how much are you trying to achieve. Maybe the career transition is the thing that you start to mold, and let the other stuff wait until you've made some progress here and feel good about it.
Pete Wright:
Oh, man. That's like the bonus answer to this whole thing. I think that's another thing that you figure out as you get older. Oh, God, it makes me sound so old, but as you get older, is that-
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, with your gray cable sweater.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
You fit it real nice, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Right. I just need a pipe.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
Is that we have too much stuff on our lists for each individual day, week, and month. The reality is-
Nikki Kinzer:
It's crazy.
Pete Wright:
Pick one or two, and be happy that you get those things done.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
With everything else that is inflicted on you.
Nikki Kinzer:
Love it.
Pete Wright:
Just I think this comes with a sense of rationalization that you have to have, because today is nuts. Just today, speaking broadly, is nuts, so it's okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
Crazy nuts.
Pete Wright:
It's crazy nuts, crazy cakes. Okay. Now let's talk about transitions. How about that?
Nikki Kinzer:
Let's do it. Let's transition to transitions.
Pete Wright:
Here's the question. This has a couple sub-questions. We might take those separately.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
"I always hear people talking about transitions and making sure to add transition time to my schedule to make it easier to move from one task to the next, but what should I be doing during that transition time?" Such a great question. Sub-questions. "What are the things I should be doing to shift my focus from the last task to the next task, and should my transition activities be different based on the type of task I'm going to do next?" Oh my goodness. Nikki, transition time.
Nikki Kinzer:
This is great, because the questions have the answers inside the questions.
Pete Wright:
I know. They totally do.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right?
Pete Wright:
Yep, it's perfect. Let's take a step back from the question and just start pulling it apart, because it's all right there. It's a gift.
Nikki Kinzer:
It really is.
Pete Wright:
The beautiful bounty of buffer time.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right. Transitions, the reason, let's just start with that. The reason that you want that transition time built into your schedule is because they are so difficult. If you're going from one thing to the other, and you're forced to do it, you're going to go into that next thing being really scattered and overwhelmed. You're not in a good place. Right? When we say we want you to add that buffer time, we're allowing you to have ADHD.
Pete Wright:
Beautiful.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
You're giving yourself that time to. Maybe something took a little longer than you expected, a meeting ran a little bit longer. You got distracted. You went down a rabbit hole somewhere. Giving that type of buffer time allows for those things to happen without you rushing into the next thing.
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love planning for them. This came from GPS. This was a member of GPS who's been a member for a long time, and she wrote down as one of her questions when she was doing her plan is, "What transitions do I need to plan for?" What I love about that, and this goes into, do you have a different type of activity based on the task? Yes, because that's what she was looking at. If I'm doing really deep work, and I'm going into lunch, what does that transition have to look like for me to actually go and eat something?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right? ... I definitely think that the activities are based on the tasks and what you need ... As far as what activities to do, what I recommend is getting up from where you are seated, walking around. I love, and I've said this before. When you and I worked together up in Portland, we were doing some recordings, and you had us walk outside in the front yard for like five minutes just to get that fresh air. It was cold, but it was lovely. Just to get that reset. I think that's really important, so we want to go outside, get a little bit of exercise. Not go workout, necessarily, but walk around a little bit in your house, or go to walk around your building if you work at a building. Whatever. Just get that movement.
It's a mind thing, too. It's almost like a silent meditation of letting go of what this is that you've been working on, and opening yourself up for what's next. Not being resentful of it, but opening yourself up for it. That's kind of how I look at it. What do you think? What do you want to add?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I mean, I agree with all that. I think it's okay. For me, I sit down, and I take some notes about what just happened. What was the meeting I was in? Right? Especially because all of my meetings, when people schedule with me on my calendar, are short, five to 10 minutes. You can't book an hour with me. You can book 50 minutes. You can't book a half hour. You can book 25, because of the buffer time. It's all built in.
At the end of that meeting, I take the five minutes to just make some notes, whether it's the contact I was just talking to, or in the database of the podcast. Whatever it is, I make a few notes. That allows me to core dump and get rid of what's in my head from the last meeting. Even if I'm not necessarily completely ready for the next meeting, at least I'm not carrying the baggage of the last one into the next one, because all of that is gone. That's the important part for me. It's also okay just to close your eyes for five minutes. Right? Set a timer-
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
For three minutes, and just think, or don't think. Play a few rounds of Threes on your phone. Whatever it takes to just kind of clear the head space for whatever comes next.
Nikki Kinzer:
I like the notes too.
Pete Wright:
So that is-
Nikki Kinzer:
Because I think that was one of the questions. Right?
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, I don't know. Maybe this isn't the question. I just read it that way. How do you remember where you left off? I think that's where the notes come in. I like that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
If I'm working on a presentation, I do that in Google Docs, and then I'll make a comment that this is where I left off, so that when I go back in I know where I left off. That's helpful, for sure.
Pete Wright:
I use Obsidian every time. For example, for every podcast I do, I have a master note for that podcast. In those master notes, I have each episode, the prep work that I've done for each episode where I'm prepping in Obsidian. I also have a section for all the meetings, and each meeting gets a new note, so I can go back and just click through the dates of when meetings were to find whatever it was. I often don't go back and reflect on those meetings after I've written the notes, because I don't really need to, but that's the space where I know I can.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
If there's something I have to remember, or write down, or I take a paper note and I want to make sure it's on all my devices, I put it there in Obsidian. That works great for me. Whatever it is. Whatever your system is. Should your transition activities be different based on the type of tasks you're going to do next? I think you're the only one who gets to decide that, because-
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right.
Pete Wright:
It works different for my brain. You have to decide what those activities are, and what are best for you. Okay, planning and tech. Are you ready for this? I know.
Nikki Kinzer:
Starring Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
"AI. How do we use it, and what are the best AI programs for people with ADHD? Comigo? MindMapper? What else, or do you have any good AI recommendations?" You guys ... Okay ... This is so big.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know.
Pete Wright:
This question's so big, and-
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, this is like a whole podcast.
Pete Wright:
Really hard.
Nikki Kinzer:
In the future.
Pete Wright:
It really is.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right?
Pete Wright:
And I would say Melissa has dutifully asked, "Please mention the platinum Patreon subscription for Coffee with Pete, or even just joining the Discord and jumping into the technology channel to talk to other people about what they use." Coffee with Pete, once a month we have a couple of hours. I don't even remember which Friday it's on. It's like the first Friday, second Friday?
Nikki Kinzer:
Second Friday.
Pete Wright:
Second Friday, I think., where we jump on Discord and video just privately, just members of the platinum community. We just take on tech questions, and we sometimes research together. We sometimes talk about use cases. People come in and demo their own systems. That kind of thing. That's what Coffee with Pete is. You're welcome to join any time. Just jump into that Patreon platinum subscription and hang out with us. The technology channel is one of the free channels. You can talk all you want there. Okay ... I want to shy away from giving too many specific ADHD related AI applications, because it's so new. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
For example, Comigo is a therapeutic wrapper around an AI model. You treat it like a therapy, but you can also do that with the native models, OpenAI or Anthropic. You can just start talking to your AI and getting feedback any time you want. There are some benefits, some scheduling. They built some things on top of it that make it a little bit more therapy friendly, but it's by no means a therapist.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
I think it's so early. It's so early that companies are still just now trying to figure out how to use these tools, so they're changing all the time. I can't make a recommendation. I can tell you some of the ones I've tried. For example, Reclaim is one that I've tried that is designed around protecting your schedule and protecting your habits. It is great, but clumsy. It's clunky. The idea is really great. It finds space in your calendar. It takes the things that you've said are important to you, and it schedules them throughout your calendar, but it's a mess. I can't integrate it into any of the things that I currently do. Same thing with something like Clockwise, right? That allows you to sync team calendars, or Motion. That's Motion, not Notion. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Motion is a scheduling assistant. Right? But it's incredibly complicated to make it do what you want it to do. Clara is a really expensive, like $99 a month expensive, AI assistant that actually has a human in the middle. Right? You say, "Clara, I want to schedule this thing with John," and Clara, the AI, then sends a message to John. It negotiates calendars. It's essentially AI to AI calendar negotiation, and if it gets confused, there's a human at the Clara company that will read your email and try to fix it so that it's invisible to you. That is a sign to me that we're not there yet. I'm not going to make any recommendations for any of these things, because they're clumsy, and I don't think we're there.
Where is AI really great? The tool that I've landed on right now, because everything is so in flux, is Poe, Poe.com. The reason I like Poe, it's a paid. I think you can use it for free, but in order to ... get the goods, you've got to pay for it. It's not cheap. It's like 20 bucks a month, but what you get is all the bots. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
You get all the bots, and you can roll your own bots based on other bots. For example, I happen to know that ChatGPT-4 is really good at code. Right? I know it's really good at looking at code or Regex, which is regular expressions. I can put in a Regex that I'm using, and it will validate it and say, "Hey, this is what that's going to do. Here's an example of how it works," and you can see it. I can see what the code is going to do.
I can have it design things. Right? Have it say I need a CSS color scheme for a website, or I need a new page for a website, and here's a code. It'll give me starter code that I can literally paste into a text editor and run. It's really good at that. I know it's really good at transformations, so I can give it a list and say, "Alphabetize this list," or I can give it a data set, and I can say, "Hey, here. Take this data, and I want you to summarize it, and reorder it, and do things to it." Right? I can do that to it, but it's not that great at natural language.
For that, I use Claude 2, which is from Anthropic. Again, I don't want to completely belabor NaNoWriMo, but I just have to say how I've been using it this year for this book, which is extraordinary to me. I've taken the book. Once I hit like 50,000 words, I saved it as a text file and gave it to Claude. Claude read the book. Now, whenever I have a problem, I ask Claude. I'm essentially interviewing the AI about my book. Right?
I'm not telling it, "Write the book for me." I'm saying, "Hey. I think I might have spelled the word for this Pakistani character I have in here differently throughout the book. Can you tell me how I spell it most often," and it'll tell me, "Here are all the places in chapter two, in chapter three, in chapter six." It'll tell me all of these things. If I need to say, "Hey. What year was it when this character did X, Y, Z?" It'll tell me, "Hey. In chapter four, you said the year was 1972 that this thing happened." I can then use that. Right? I can get questions asked about my book as if I'm working with a real editor, and it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. It is a mind-blowing process improvement-
Nikki Kinzer:
Experience, yeah.
Pete Wright:
To writing long-form stuff. I love that idea of how to use AI to do that stuff. In terms of integrating with productivity, I just think we're still at a place where the software artists who are out there doing this stuff haven't completely answered the question yet. It's too early, so all I can say is, please, don't fall in love with something yet. I guarantee you they don't have the money to make it sustainable yet. Poke around. Try it. It's great. We're doing a lot of that, but just protect your productivity heart. Don't fall in love yet, because we're not there. There's no recommendation that I feel 100% safe making that is going to solve the problems you want to solve. I absolutely think you should kick tires, and I feel like Poe is a really great safe place to do it, and it lets you explore all the models.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
Particularly if you're following any of the tech press, and you see what's happened over the last week with OpenAI, and OpenAI's leadership. It's a problematic space, and problems are not solved yet, so please be patient. That's where I stand.
I will say, a lot of the tools that I use regularly have AI built into them. For example, I use Grammarly. Grammarly now has AI built in, so I can select text and say, "Rewrite this and make it sound like an epic poem," and Grammarly will take care of that. That sort of thing. Because it's built on OpenAI and ChatGPT, it's the same exact thing you get using Poe. It's just built into a right click in your computer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Coda. We use Coda extensively, and it now has AI built into it for doc creators. I can select a table and have the AI do transformations on the tables that we have, and can catenate tables and fields, and I can have AI do a lot of wonderful things. Some of that is built in. You might want to look at the tools you currently use and evaluate whether or not they've released new versions that include AI features in them, because maybe they have. A lot of them have: Notion, Coda. Todoist has AI built into it now. It's coming. It's coming.
With Zapier, if you're a Zapier user, for example, you can tie a lot of the services that you use probably together using an AI go-between. They have ChatGPT built into Zapier now, so you can do a lot of stuff, but we're early days. I know it feels like it's moving fast and that problems are solved. Problems are not solved.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Pete Wright:
So that's where I stand. Do you have any? I mean, what's your experience so far? I know you've been using Poe a little bit. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
I've been using Poe a lot. I love it. It's transformational in a lot of ways. Right? For me, it helps writing, because I'll have an idea, but I don't know how to put it into a sentence. I have bullet points. I'll ask it, like, "I need an introduction paragraph for my weekly GPS newsletter that has these things in it." Then it comes up with something. I copy it. I paste it, and then I change it to come from me, but it gives me the start.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
It gives me the fluff that I used to ask you to do. "Pete, I need the fluff. I need-"
Pete Wright:
Oh my God, AI took my job.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, no, no, no, no, and it didn't take Melissa's either. Believe me, because it doesn't have the voice. That's the thing is it doesn't have the voice ... Well, you're going to catch me on this. You're going to say, "It's a limiting belief." I think I'm a good writer. I think I have good ideas. I just don't always know how to put them into sentences, so it helps with that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
The other thing that I think it helps with, and this is for ADHD-ers, is if you're having a hard time breaking a project down, ask AI to do it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you've got 10 steps.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
And that's huge.
Pete Wright:
That, I think, is really important, and why I want to go back to Poe again. Because, again, you're interacting with the bot directly. Right? You start a new chat with GPT-4, and you say, "Break this down." You're interacting directly with GPT for just the exact same way Todoist is. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
All Todoist is doing is interacting with GPT-4. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
That's all it's doing. In some cases, GPT-3.5 because it's cheaper for the developers. Right? So you've got to be aware that Poe allows you access to all of the things that you might otherwise see and think is bespoke in a separate tool. They're really just wrapping ... around an existing language model. That's what's happening in the market right now, so just be aware of that. You might fall in love with a tool that you could get exactly the same feature with one subscription directly to GPT, or to OpenAI, and solve all your problems. I will say, in terms of just usage, the more conversational you can be, the better it is. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
The more you speak to it like a human and not like you're trying to prepare a Google search, the smarter it is. I have this thing with the book conversation. It's an ongoing conversation I have with Claude, and I start every night's writing session with, "Hi, Claude. Are you ready to brainstorm?" It says, "Hey, I'm ready. Do you have a recent version of the book," and I upload the latest version of the book, and it has everything that I need to do that work.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's awesome.
Pete Wright:
It is. It's like we're moving toward Her, that movie Her. Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
We're moving in that direction where you can have a conversation that ... feels like an assistant you would want to have in your life.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Right? It's scary, and there are cultural humps to get over, and there's still a lot of litigation to happen, but I think, for me, it's nothing something we can hide from.
Nikki Kinzer:
No. No.
Pete Wright:
I still hear. I hear-
Nikki Kinzer:
And it can be very useful. Very useful.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right, last question.
Pete Wright:
Then last question. "There have been questions across the community about TickTick. Why'd you decide to make the switch from Todoist, or Things, and why TickTick?" Okay, so we had centralized on Todoist through Story, and we have a lot of tasks. Many, many thousands of tasks in TruStory. What we found was Todoist was crashing. It was not updating between us on the team, and we were not being able to see each other's tasks, and that is a deal breaker.
We had to try stuff that fixed it, so we tried all the other team-based sharing tools. We tried Asana and Monday. I mean, you just name it. We've tried it. We've done the demo. We imported all of our tasks into the system, and ... we tried it. When it came down to it, we ended up with TickTick, because go ahead and look at the pricing page.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh gosh.
Pete Wright:
For all of those tools. It's ridiculous.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's so cheap.
Pete Wright:
They're not designed for people like us, like people who just need to share with a couple of people, but also have a lot of tasks that they need to organize.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
So that's why we ended up on it, because it works. It allows sharing, and the price is right.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's so inexpensive.
Pete Wright:
That's it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Things is beautiful.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is.
Pete Wright:
If I had my druthers, I would use Things all day, all night, but it's an individual tool.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
You cannot share.
Nikki Kinzer:
You cannot share, and that was the deal breaker. Right? For me.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I had no problems with Things as my task management system. I loved it. It worked.
Pete Wright:
Yep.
Nikki Kinzer:
I knew it very well inside and out, but it doesn't have that ability to share. That was the deal breaker when you had told us that you were moving to TickTick. Pete did not. I made it sound like you made me do it. You didn't ... but Melissa, and I, and you were talking, and it made sense because even though we don't have a lot of tasks, we still have projects where you're doing a part of it. Melissa's doing a part of it. I'm doing a part of it. I can't do something until Pete's done his part. Pete can't do something until Melissa's done her part, so it made sense for us to all be on the same page and be able to see where things are at.
This was part of planning. Right? This was part of knowing where the projects are, who's responsible, who's still working on something. The communication was just so much better. It was a learning curve ... Just a couple of weeks I made a mistake where I didn't tag you or something. I don't remember what I did, but there was something. It was a user error of why something ... didn't get Pete's attention.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I think it was between me and Melissa that we had a transcription.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
A date challenge. It was just all about how we're using dates, but I think that gets to why it's pretty customizable. I think it works every bit as well as an individual tool as it does a sharing tool.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
For small teams.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
And we haven't had any syncing issues, which is the important part.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Pete Wright:
Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Not a one.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Occasionally ... I do go into the search for, "What's TickTick doing? What's on their roadmap?" I get updates all the time, but there are a lot of bug fix updates, and I'm looking for, "What's the next big feature," because I'm kind of feature hungry. I want to see what they're doing next, and they've been a little bit quiet on new features for a while. It's a stable application, and I think it's great. My hunch is they're working on AI. Something with AI.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
And that'll be the next big release.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
There you go.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you everyone.
Pete Wright:
That was an hour of questions. Holy smokes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I know. Love it.
Pete Wright:
Nice job, team. This was really fun. Thank you for submitting the questions. Thank you for giving us the fodder to talk about today. It's been great, and I hope that helps. Hope that helps someone somewhere out there.
Nikki Kinzer:
Me too.
Pete Wright:
Thanks everybody.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you everyone.
Pete Wright:
We sure appreciate you, absolutely, download and listening to the show. Thank you for your time and your attention. Don't forget. If you have something to contribute to the conversation, we're heading over to the show talk channel in our Discord server, and you can join us right there by becoming that 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.
