The ADHD-Productivity Trap with Ari Tuckman, Psy.D, CST
It’s not that people with ADHD don’t want to be productive. It’s that they’re often trapped in a paradox: striving to do more, while silently blaming themselves for not doing enough. That tension—between internal ambition and external expectations—is the focus of this conversation with returning guest clinical psychologist Dr. Ari Tuckman.
In this episode, Ari joins Pete and Nikki to explore the deep psychology of productivity, the social pressure to “look busy,” and the subtle ways perfectionism becomes a form of avoidance. Along the way, they discuss the myth of the perfect planner, why your to-do list is lying to you, and what happens when you finally admit you just don’t want to do the thing. With humor, heart, and a healthy dose of hard-earned insight, Ari introduces lessons from his new book, The ADHD Productivity Manual, revealing how managing productivity starts not with apps or alarms—but with radical honesty.
Because the real challenge isn’t doing more—it’s knowing what matters enough to do at all.
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:
Nikki. It's a very big week this week because we have a guest who's back who's just crested the five time. This is the sixth episode that this particular [inaudible 00:00:32]. I believe it is number six, maybe number five. But either way, there should be a jacket involved-
Nikki Kinzer:
There should be a jacket.
Ari Tuckman:
[inaudible 00:00:39] but one of them really dragged and it felt like two.
Nikki Kinzer:
It was probably the one that I was not in.
Ari Tuckman:
Right, that is [inaudible 00:00:49].
Pete Wright:
That was a banger. People are still downloading that one. That's all I know. Anyway, we're very excited. We're going to be talking about productivity today and the productivity trap, and I'm very excited to do that Today. We are thrilled to welcome back a true friend of the show, Dr. Ari Tuckman, clinical psychologist, author, international speaker. Ari has dedicated his career to helping adults with ADHD live more successful, satisfying lives. He's the author of four essential books on ADHD, a leading voice in the ADHD community, and as of today, a five-time guest on the ADHD podcast. We're excited to have him back with us to talk about one of the biggest pain points for people with ADHD, the trap of productivity. Hi, Ari.
Ari Tuckman:
It is always awesome to be here with you guys.
Nikki Kinzer:
Welcome back.
Pete Wright:
Oh, it's absolutely our treat. I'm going to hand this to Nikki because this comes up I think... In spite of the fact that I live with it every day, I think it comes up for Nikki writ large because I know I'm not the only one dealing with the trap of productivity. How did this episode come about? Kick us off.
Nikki Kinzer:
Every day I think our clients deal with this, right? Yeah. Ari, you have something new you want to share that's coming out and this is how this came about. So tell us about this new book.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, so I've got a brand new book. It's called The ADHD Productivity Manual. The Kindle book as of this recording is available for preorder, but the paperback and the everywhere else is going to be available like May 7th, May 9th, something like that. But it's really about getting things done, and it's one of those things that trouble with getting things done is the biggest complaint by adults with ADHD. It's also the biggest complaint about adults with ADHD, that there was also that kind of social component. What I wanted to do was to write a book that covered all these different areas. There's so much that affects what you do in this moment and in this moment and in this moment and in this moment. So it's not a TikTok video, it's not like the top 10 list. It's more than that.
I wound up with 36 short chapters, but I cover 36 different areas that affect your ability to get stuff done and try to do it with more depth than just this stupid obvious advice that never really works and frankly is insulting because obviously you thought about this already and someone else in your life has already said, "Get a to-do list" or something. So you don't need to be told that again. And I just poured all of this 25 years worth of working with adults with ADHD, just poured it into this book, and I'm super psyched to get it out there.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, we're excited to see it. So like you said, people who have ADHD and people who live with ADHD, this is an issue of being productive. So what makes it so hard for ADHDers to be productive or to find their groove to get started and all of that?
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. So let's just start by saying... This is a line I came up with when I was writing my book before, but a ADHD doesn't invent new problems, it just exacerbates the universal ones. So some of this is just true for all people. None of us are perfect. We all have our moments. Folks with ADHD, there's those moments more often and possibly in more visible ways. But it's everything from just the basic stuff, the fundamental stuff of ADHD of trouble with tracking time and feeling the future. So I should really work on this thing that's due in a week, but this Instagram sure is interesting. Or, oh, remember when you go to the meeting, you have to bring whatever, and if you show up without it, it's a big problem. So some of it is just that sort of fundamental distractibility and impulsivity of ADHD.
But then you get into other stuff of like I mentioned to-do lists and schedules and alarms. These are all great. We all know this is obvious, helpful stuff, but the problem is they only work when you use them. So if you don't think ahead of like, "Ooh, I need to put this into my calendar," or, "I need to not just have it in my calendar, I also need to factor in travel time and I also need to factor in the getting ready. And I also need to..." So it's not just about... Because, I don't know, who was I talking to? Some client yesterday. And you set an alarm for 3:30, which was the moment the thing was going to happen, that he was just going to stand up and be there. There's stuff like that of when do you set the alarm for and what else is going to be going on? So there's an art to that.
Nikki Kinzer:
And that's what you mean by going deeper in some of this stuff. It's not just set an alarm or a reminder to do something. We need to really be more thoughtful about how many reminders when they're being put off or whatever I'm trying to say.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, yeah, exactly because if your alarm goes off when you're in the car, that's not helpful. It's just annoying.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, right.
Ari Tuckman:
So absolutely, there's some sort of thinking ahead that goes along with that. Not to mention all the, frankly, rather mixed feelings you might have about these tools. There's a party of you that recognizes, yeah, it's probably helpful. And there's a part of you that's like, "God, I fricking hate these and they just stress me out."
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. They've never worked. Yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. So it's not even a love-hate. It's more like a vague fondness, "I suppose I have to," slash hate kind of relationship.
Pete Wright:
There's a funny thing. I look at it when we first got the Apple Watch, it's been a better part of a decade now, and it has these stand alerts to remind you to stand up. At the bottom half of every hour, just go ahead and stand up for a minute. And the number of people who were really upset about that, it was just too much. My watch is annoying me. Everything's terrible. The world is ending. My constant refrain is what would happen if you actually stood up for one minute at the end of every hour? How would that change how you feel? What if instead of being resentful of this alert, would you find maybe there's a reason for it and that your body needs to stand up every hour? And the number of people who said, "Oh, maybe you're right. Maybe if I rewire that."
Same thing goes with calendars. I have found that if I don't have a multipage scroll of past alarms in my phone app, I'm doing it wrong. I have to have all the alarms all the time. I have the default set on my calendar to give me multiple alerts an hour before it's set to wherever I'm going. It says, "Here is how long it takes in today's traffic. You should leave right now 10 minutes before you leave now." You have to have scaffolding to build the building. And the alarms are my scaffolding. I have no building without scaffolding. And I think [inaudible 00:08:31] is the resentment. It's like the gap between having the scaffolding and being willing to accept it and adapt to it and use it is I think a hard part. Is that fair?
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. Yeah. No, it is, it absolutely is. I think that for maybe some younger adults, there's this thing of, "I don't think I need it." Whereas everyone else will be like, "No, dude, you do." Some of it is that I think there is a resentment of, "Goddammit, why do I have to use this?" I think there can be a shame or embarrassment like, "I don't like the idea that I have to use it, and I certainly don't want anyone else to see that I use it." So there's that level of it as well. I think there's also a feeling often of, "I've been told by so many people that I have to use this that I just don't want to." There's that kind of oppositional, "I'm tired of being told what to do," especially in a righteous judgy way. So there's all that psychology that gets wrapped into this.
And I think it becomes a matter of recognizing it as I'm not setting alarms for other people, I'm doing this for me. I prefer the outcome when I set alarms versus when I don't. That's the key. So that's one part of it. I think on the social front, like I mentioned that embarrassment, but the thing is, it is way better to be known as that person who sets a lot of alarms rather than that person who doesn't show up for things. That's a no-brainer. And especially if you just in an offhand way, you're just like, "Oh yeah, I set a lot of alarms, helps me. I get caught up in stuff. This way I make sure I get to your thing." Nobody's going to have a negative thought about that. Everyone's going to think, "Wow, that's awesome." Also, "Shit, maybe I need to set some alarms."
Pete Wright:
Maybe I need alarms.
Ari Tuckman:
Right, exactly.
Nikki Kinzer:
So you mentioned the social side of productivity. Can you talk a little bit more about what that means?
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, and this is a whole section in the book because absolutely this is important. The obvious part is it's probably good to become more productive, which is like a duh. But because we don't live alone, you don't live on an island by yourself, you have to interact with other people. Everybody has opinions about everything, number one. And other people are going to have expectations for you. Maybe that's the people you live with, maybe it's the people you work with or if you go to school, whatever. So people will have expectations about you doing things just as you have expectations for them. So on the one hand, you do want to be a good team player. "I said I'd get you this thing, yeah, here it is." Or, "This is my job to do this thing. I'm going to get it to you by the deadline."
But also sometimes it's not actually a thing that you want to do. "I've decided I'm not committed to this idea or this is not of interest to me, and I'm going to make a decision that I'm not going to do this thing. I'm not going to be a part of this project," or, "I'll get it to you, but it's definitely not Friday, maybe Tuesday." But do you have this sort of social standing to be able to do that? If you feel like you're always behind the eight-ball on stuff, you might feel like you can't say no, which-
Nikki Kinzer:
The people pleasing.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. So best case, you make yourself miserable getting it done. Worst case is you can't pull it off, it is doomed to fail because there's just not enough time for it. And then you fall short, and then it just proves again how you're not reliable. So you start in the hole. Now, if anything, you're deeper in the hole. So part of what I talk about in the book is this thing of how do you handle the social thing? How much do you let other people vote on how productive you need to be? Are you able to disappoint people? And if you are, is it your problem to fix? Because maybe it isn't.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I love that you say that. I love that you say that because that is something that as a parent, we have adopted with our children, and I can see doing this with other commitments. Is this our problem to solve? Is this our problem to take on? Is this our problem to have to worry about? And half of the time, I would say more than half the time, it's not our problem, it's their problem, and we need to be there to pick up the pieces if we have to be or have to. I love that you say that, it's just a different context of putting that in your schedule, how you're designing your schedule, yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, and that you have a right sometimes to say no.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Absolutely.
Ari Tuckman:
Now, if it's your boss, that might be a little bit harder, but I think you might still be able to make a case to say like, "Hey, boss, if I do this, I can't get to these things. So you tell me what's more important." But certainly if it's a spouse or a coworker or something that is a more relationship of equals, you have the right to say, "I don't really want to do this. This is not of interest to me." Or, "I'll do it, but under these circumstances." And I think that that is a part of what gets lost if you feel like you're always sort of scrambling to keep up, that you don't have that kind of social capital to hold your line.
Nikki Kinzer:
So something that I've noticed with the people that I work with is they'll come and we'll talk about the tools and we'll talk about the systems. And with our book, we'll talk about our method that we help them with. But what we find in a lot of cases is that it's not the tools, it's not even the process you're going through. They have too much that they are expecting of themselves. It is so unfair, and yet either take the blame of that, that they're doing something wrong, or, "The tool's not working, I need to get a new one." So I'm curious, do you talk about that in the book, about what is realistic? What can a person plan and do and feel good about when they have to disappoint or say no?
Ari Tuckman:
Absolutely. And you're nailing it here, these are all the things. Because again, that fantasy of, "I just need to be more productive. Everything is going to be great. People won't be disappointed in me. Everything is going to be fine. I'll get done all the things I need to do." Again, there's something to that, but there comes a point where it's like it doesn't matter how productive you are, there are still hard choices to be made. There will always be more ideas than time. And sometimes it's painful to let some of those things go, or it takes some real cognitive work to sort out like, okay, I can't do all of these, what am I going to do, what am I not? It might take some emotional work to accept the fact of, "I hate the fact that I can't do this, but also I know this is not what's best for me," in whatever reasons.
Pete Wright:
Said me never.
Ari Tuckman:
Right. So that's the thing, It's like it is work to do that, to decide what to take on and what not to. And if you set the bar too high, you will always be disappointed. But I think that there's that hope that if I set the bar high and then I clear it, then I will feel good about myself. And there is a logic to it, but there also comes a point of saying, "No, this is okay. This is okay." Or, "I am okay in this situation." Or, "I'm going to be happy in my life in this situation. And to recognize, while these might be interesting things that have some benefit, this really is what's important to me." So that whole thing of expectations is incredibly important in terms... Our happiness is a function of expectations versus experience. And if you feel like you have to be perfect, you're never going to get there and you're always going to be dissatisfied.
Nikki Kinzer:
And it's interesting too because I've noticed where somebody will have a really good day and they're just on it and they're getting all this stuff done and they're so productive, and then the next day it just goes... And then they're disappointed because, "Why can't I do that again? Why can't I duplicate that?"
Pete Wright:
This is the curse of intermittent reinforcement, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Because I've done it once and felt that rush of what it's like to feel successful when I clear the bar, my expectation is cemented that surely I can do this again and again, repeat. And that is more consistently reinforced not to be accurate. But the real turmoil I find comes when I exist in the eye of the storm that is made up of all the things, as you were saying, that I want to do, all of the projects that my brain is telling me are amazing and they're going to be great, and all the things that I need to do as a function of my job, but I'm too oppositionally defiant to actually do them. And that leads to a very special bundle of shame-related paralysis that I feel like we should at least address, because I can't imagine that I'm a alone.
Ari Tuckman:
Right. No, absolutely, that all the... I'm a psychologist, so obviously I'm going to say this, but what happens in the moment isn't just about the moment. It's about all the other stuff that gets attached to it for good or bad reasons, but it does. So [inaudible 00:19:04] that's part of it also, because on the surface you might look at it and say, "That's pretty easy to figure out, but yet somehow we get stuck and tangled off and things get messier. So anytime we're having feelings that seem out of proportion of what's happening specifically in this situation, we need to look inside and, "Okay, so wait, what else is going on here?"
Pete Wright:
And what does that look like to illuminate some of the persistent patterns that you see? If we were to create a template for folks who are listening to see themselves maybe in the spirit of giving them a rope. What does it look? How do you interrupt this pattern?
Ari Tuckman:
The first place it starts is just awareness, as in I am aware that this is what's happening. Awareness is always the first step. Because if you're not aware, then things just go, you don't know where to intervene if you don't have some sense of, "Oh, wait a second, something is happening here. Let me take a look and figure it out." Just in general, in the book, I cover lots of areas because I want people to have lots of things to look for, whether it's something like, "This isn't the right planner or schedule system for me," or, "I'm being perfectionistic about this," or whatever it is, but to be able to be like, "Ooh, wait a second. That is a thing that looks familiar." Because if you're clear on what's going on, then at least you're in the ballgame of doing something about it and being able to recognize what is the situation that I know to be true? What am I adding into this?
Pete Wright:
Right. You trigger the next thought on perfectionism, because perfectionism is a symptom of ADHD as a way to attempt to regain control in our lives and in our productivity. I think leads to this discussion of how do you retune your expectation to know that good enough doesn't have to be perfect and that maybe there is no aspirational perfect. How do you adapt to know when good enough is good enough?
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. And the thing of it is, it's about stepping back because this is not the only thing you need to do this week. If it is, then just like hell, take the whole week, make it amazing. Never is that the reality of your life or you don't have that luxury ever. So it's more a matter of how does this fit compared to the rest of what I got? Is this really worth the extra time? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But that requires stopping, pausing, and thinking, "What else do I got? What do I need to do? How important is this to me? How important is this to the person I'm doing it for? What else do I need to do?" Because there's that mental math, how does this fit within the bigger context?
There's also just that hyper-focused losing track of time. It's not perfectionism in that case, you're just caught up in it losing track, or it's just you've made it really interesting, which is great because now you're motivated to do it, but maybe now you're too interested in it.
Pete Wright:
You can't let it go.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. Or I don't know, like Russ Ramsay has talked about this kind of social capital thing where someone... He used to work at Penn and the counseling center, he give the example, a student is late on their three to five page paper, they talk to the professor, they get an extension, and then they had the idea, "I need to give them a 5 to 10-page paper to make up for the fact-"
Nikki Kinzer:
Overcompensate.
Ari Tuckman:
Right. And then Russ is like, "Wait a second. Did they tell you it needs to be? Wait, they didn't tell you? If you have to do a 10-page paper, you're not going to be done in the two-day extension, what are you doing?" So that kind of noticing like, "Oh, wait a second, I'm overdoing this, but not for the right reasons."
Nikki Kinzer:
You know what I find so interesting? And this goes back from one of our shows with you a long time ago, and that's the lying episode. And what I find fascinating is I will walk with someone, walk through with them their list, and they'll have let's say 30, 40 things on their today list. And we'll go through them and we'll talk about these questions that you're bringing up. Where does this fit? How does this work? And it's fascinating to me, they'll convince me that it's just as important as everything else. And so now I'm looking at this list of 30 things and I'm like, "Oh, dang, what are we going to do?"
Ari Tuckman:
Rescue child from burning building? Yep, can't take that one off.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. "Yeah, you can't take that off and you can't take this off." And, "Oh, you have a really good argument for this." So I'm just curious, how do we get really honest with ourselves? How do we really get to the core of the burning child is more important than the garage that has been a mess for the last three years.
Ari Tuckman:
Right. Yeah. But Martha Stewart and a photo crew are going to show up any day now, so you got to clear-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. So it's really important.
Pete Wright:
Photo ready.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. They might show up, you never know. But this is part of it, it's editing down to-do lists. And the obvious way is ta-da, I finished that, done. But part of a good... To-do lists are a dynamic tool that sometimes... First of all, sometimes we don't put it on the to-do list in the first place, as in it's a nice idea, but nope, not going to happen. Never going to get to it. Not good enough. Don't even write it down. But sometimes ideas get put on that maybe we're actually a pretty reasonable idea at the moment you added them, but life moves on and you're like, "That is no longer relevant."
Nikki Kinzer:
But right now in this moment, yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
Right, right. Delete. You are allowed to cross things off your to-do list without having done them.
Nikki Kinzer:
Can you say that again?
Ari Tuckman:
You're allowed to cross stuff off without having done it, and it doesn't mean you failed, but that's the ADHD baggage of, "There was so much I didn't do, so this is another one. Here we go again." If I keep it on there, I keep the hope alive that maybe one day I'll get to it. But the thing of it is when you have a bunch of extra junk on your to-do list, besides the fact that it just stresses you out and makes you feel bad to look at it, it also hides the things that are really worthwhile. So part of having a good to-do list is spending the time occasionally to dump stuff off and to just say, "Look, that is never going to happen. It is a nice idea, it would be lovely. It is never going to happen. These things are more important. Away it goes."
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. And I think the key too is getting them to understand if you have a system in place to remind you of these things later when you want to be reminded, that's good. Because that's part of the problem, is that most people, they're so afraid that they're going to forget, and so they want everything on the list. But what I'll say and what you're confirming is that clutters that list of the things that are truly important. And so we can find a different way of holding that information in a different place that doesn't clutter the day to day. Because then you're really getting to see what needs to be done. Yeah. Yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. And that's fine to have like a second or third list, but-
Nikki Kinzer:
Just a different place to put it. Yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
Right. But it's not in your active, "Here's the thing I'm using."
Nikki Kinzer:
That I need to be productive today. Yeah, yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
What about the, "I just don't want to do it"?
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
What do you do with that? Do you have a section of in your book about that?
Pete Wright:
The I don't want to?
Nikki Kinzer:
I just don't want to.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. I do have a chapter called something like How to Make Yourself Do the Things You Hate or something.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah.
Ari Tuckman:
So yeah. Yeah, that's a real thing. Turns out life has boring stuff you don't want to do. You know what? Maybe the answer is, this is not a thing you're going to do just to cut to it. Maybe that's it, it's like, "I don't want to do this and I'm not going to, and I need to be able to find a way to be okay with it." Sometimes that's the answer. Sometimes the answer is you just got to bite the bullet, you just got to do it. You need to remind yourself of what are the benefits of doing this and why am I doing it, and how do I sort of fire up my motivation to get it done? So accountability partners or killing distractions or doing it when things are quiet and your meds are doing their best. So ways of sort tipping the odds.
But maybe what it reflects is I had to... I don't know exactly what I need to do here, this is ambiguous. It's not clear to me what the demands are or how it needs to be done, and that's stressing me out. So maybe I need to figure that out and then do it. But that might be a situation where you're self-conscious to ask like, "Hey, boss, tell me again what are the specs on this? What do you need?" Because that might look like you're not paying attention to the meeting. And I get it, it's smart. You don't want to reveal the fact that you weren't listening in the meeting. The problem is giving your boss something with the wrong specs, like lets the cat out of the bag anyway.
So it's better to ask early and come across as conscientious with good intentions. So maybe it's that. Maybe there's a way to do this in a smaller, less painful kind of a way. So the simple example is, "I'm not baking cookies for the bake sale. Screw that, I'm going to go buy some." And maybe they're not amazing, but seriously, this is as good as it's going to get. Either that or a handful, I'm just going to give you a handful of change out of the ashtray in my car and call it a day. But is there a way to do this so you can participate or whatever that isn't the awful, "I'm going to hate this, why did I sign up for this?"?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah.
Pete Wright:
I can't let go of the perfectionism bit because I'm perseverating on it. And in the context of everything that you've said I find fascinating, so I'm going to talk out loud for a bit and see if sense comes out.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, do it.
Pete Wright:
I find when I am in a mode where I can't let go of a project in what I think might be objectively defined as a perfectionist mode, it's usually because I'm not admitting to myself that I'm not taking into account the rest of my schedule and that I'm afraid of something on it, that there's a clogging task down the road, and if I let go of this one thing, then I'm going to have to face it, and I don't want to face it. That I think is my aha bit of awareness about myself that sometimes saying good enough, unlocks something even harder on the other side of it, a bigger boss that I have to fight. And that's a thing that my lizard brain is not ready to do. Maybe it just needs more time to cook. Whatever the reason, I find that's when the shame kicks in. And that's huge. Thank you for that observation.
Ari Tuckman:
So I think that's an awesome, awesome example because it's not just the thing on the surface. So if we gone to do a discussion or you gone into one with yourself about does it need to be perfect? Why does it need to be perfect? Is it really that? Blah, blah, blah. What if it wasn't? At some point that you'd just run into a dead end where you're like, "Yeah, and also I still am going to overdo this," because you haven't gotten to the next thing, which is it's not about this task, it's about avoiding or delaying the more feared task. That's the truth.
Pete Wright:
And it's performative productivity too, because as soon as I'm really busy trying to make this thing great and practice my art and craft, I look like I'm really doing something. And so I get away with the facade of productivity when, in fact, the duck under the surface is just trying to grow a third leg. The performative productivity is the thing to be aware of.
Nikki Kinzer:
You're telling me that when I was cleaning my house and avoiding my taxes, that's what I was doing?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. You were really third legging it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because I felt like I was really productive that day.
Ari Tuckman:
Right, right. Boy, look at these bookshelves. Nobody's tested them for, oh, I don't know, let's say a year.
Pete Wright:
Which is so-
Nikki Kinzer:
I need to do those.
Pete Wright:
Frustrating because on any other day, if taxes weren't around, that would be productivity.
Ari Tuckman:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right, but you know. Yeah, exactly.
Pete Wright:
Yes. Oh man.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. And that is definitely a thing. And what's awesome about that is it gives you cover, especially the people around you, because if you're watching TikTok, nobody's going to think like, "Oh, I'm getting stuff done here."
Pete Wright:
Research. It's for research.
Ari Tuckman:
Right, exactly. Exactly.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh dear. Do not get your research from TikTok. Don't do that.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah, exactly. But if you're cleaning, you're like, "Hey, look at this. I'm such a responsible member of this household. You all owe me a debt of gratitude." So it makes it easier to kind of fool ourselves into the thing that like, "I'm doing okay here." Or as I sometimes say, "Are you doing this or are you not doing that?" So Nikki, for you, you weren't cleaning. That's not what you were doing. What you were doing is not doing taxes. That's really the thing that was happening there. And like you said, Pete, if there weren't taxes, you wouldn't be doing the cleaning.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Ari Tuckman:
Or if you were-
Nikki Kinzer:
I would've been watching White Lotus with my daughter. Let's be real.
Ari Tuckman:
Exactly, exactly. Truth comes out.
Nikki Kinzer:
The Truth comes out, yeah. But I think that actually that is actually an okay truth too, because we need to be okay for us having lazy days and being able to relax and have some downtime. And I see that a lot too where people feel guilt around that. And so that balance is important that we put that in there as well. You don't have to be productive all the time.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. And that's a real thing, a feeling like, "I can do this because I just can." As opposed to that guilty feeling of, "I have so much I should be doing, but I can't muster the motivation, so I'm going to do this. I'm going to watch White Lotus." But you feel guilty doing it, because you know that you're behind the ball. So some of this sort of is not just about being more productive, it's also about this bigger thing of living a good life, a life that's meaningful and interesting in that there is room to just screw out on the couch and watch TV.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. How many times does it boil down to as complicated as we make it in our heads, all of these issues, how many times does it boil down to the lesson is you have to learn to be okay with who you are in any given moment?
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah. There's real truth in that.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you are okay. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. Okay, the book already comes out. I missed most of the first half of this conversation because I had to go buy it. I have it pre-ordered on my Kindle. I had a credit card issue. Don't worry about it. It's fine, you guys. I worked it all out. And now I have it. I posted in the link. People, go get this book. Is there going to be an audiobook? Are you doing it?
Ari Tuckman:
There is. There is. So two days from now I'm going to the recording studio to record, and then next week also. So yeah, [inaudible 00:35:57] audiobook as well.
Pete Wright:
I know.
Ari Tuckman:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
So lucky. So brave. You're so brave. Have you done your books before?
Ari Tuckman:
I did not. Somebody else did my last one, and I think they were fine. But yeah, I'm going to do this one, so we'll see how it goes.
Pete Wright:
I love it. I can't wait. It's you I want in my head reading this book. Ari, it's you. I want my buddy Ari Tuckman reading me [inaudible 00:36:20].
Ari Tuckman:
And that's why I wanted to do it, is I wanted it to be in my voice and my inflection. I've done enough of this stuff so people know me. So I think that that was also important. And I think I also didn't really know how easy it was. You just find a good recording studio, they do all the sound, they do the editing and the files and whatever, so yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.
Pete Wright:
Beautiful. Awesome. Cannot wait. And let's just say Marcy Caldwell did the illustrations on the books, so that's the reason to also get the ebook, to get the illustrations. What a delightful pair of friends of this show. Ari, congratulations. It's so thrilled for you to have another one in the can and for coming back here. We just we're so grateful to you and your wisdom every single time. Thank you for doing this.
Ari Tuckman:
My pleasure. One of the nice things is after you finish, you guys know this, after you finish writing a book, then you're like, "Now I have time to go out and hang out with my friends like this."
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Pete Wright:
This is the prize. You've earned it. And thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate 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 the Discord server. You can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better at patreon.com/theadhdpodcast. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer and Ari Tuckman, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
