458: Breaking Down ADHD Challenges

You know what it takes to break down tasks… we talk about that all the time. But what happens when you investigate the underlying ADHD challenge associated with it? You become an ADHD super-sleuth!

To do it, you have to be crafty. You have to sneak up on the symptoms of your ADHD experience and recognize them for what they are. Then you have to test, and test again, changing your behavior bit by bit until you recognize that somewhere buried in your frustration and your personal sense of weakness… there is actually strength!

Plus, Pete gets the chance to talk about Underpants Gnomes. How can you miss that?

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Episode Transcript

Brought to you by The ADHD Podcast Community on Patreon

Pete Wright: Hello everybody and welcome to Taking Control, the ADHD podcast on TrueStory.fm. I'm Pete Wright, and right over there is Nikki Kinzer.

Nikki Kinzer: Hello, everyone. And for this show, I'm going to call you Detective Pete Wright.

Pete Wright: Dah, dah, dah! Among the great, Sir Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie. Detective Pikachu.

Nikki Kinzer: There you go.

Pete Wright: Yeah, I'm up there with the greats. Hey, we're talking about breaking down an ADHD challenge today. It's going to be great. And it's kind of a new way of thinking about it. We talk a lot about processes, breaking down processes, breaking down projects, but how do you break down the actual ADHD challenge itself? And it will involve underpants gnomes. I'm very excited about this.

Pete Wright: Before we do that, head over to TakeControlADHD.com. 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'll send you an email each time a new episode is released. Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook and take control of ADHD. If the show has ever touched you, if it's ever helped make a change in your life for the better, if you found you understand your relationship with ADHD in a new way, please consider supporting the show directly through Patreon, at patreon.com/theADHDpodcast. Patreon is listener supported podcasting. With a few dollars a month, you can help guarantee we continue to grow the show, add new features, invest more heavily in this community. patreon.com/theADHDpodcast to learn more. We are deeply thankful for all of you for helping this show stay afloat.

Pete Wright: We have a few bits of business. The first one is, you were a guest on the Change Paradox podcast.

Nikki Kinzer: I was.

Pete Wright: And it just went live last week, as we record this on Friday. You were great.

Nikki Kinzer: Ah, thank you. It was so fun.

Pete Wright: It was so fun.

Nikki Kinzer: I was interviewed by Dr. Dodge.

Pete Wright: Dr. Dodge! And this is his new show. A lot of you had asked when he was a guest on our show, had asked, "When he starts his podcast, would you please let us know?" Well, this is us letting you know he has started his podcast. Nikki was on it and you can find the link in the show notes. It's over at TrueStory.fm/TheChangeParadox. It was a great episode. I love the idea of just change and changing your life and behavior around that which does not change. Your ADHD is a thing that exists. So how do you change around it? That's the ADHD paradox. It was a really neat conversation. I was glad to be able to listen to it though I did not participate, which was weird.

Nikki Kinzer: You did not.

Pete Wright: It was so weird.

Nikki Kinzer: It was weird.

Pete Wright: So that's the first one.

Nikki Kinzer: It was weird to talk about you because there were a couple of times where I'd be, "My co-host Pete Wright," and Pete is there, he's just not talking. He's in the background doing his tech stuff. It was a little strange not having you there.

Pete Wright: Super fun and super glad and grateful that you were able to do that. That's the first bit of business.

Pete Wright: The second is, I've got to tell you about my dog. Can I do this on Thanksgiving? We did a presentation a long time ago about how do you resolve an ADHD spiral? Do you remember that?

Nikki Kinzer: Yes.

Pete Wright: I think the last thing was, when your dog runs away, it gets in the mud or something like that. So it's Thanksgiving, we're all relaxing in the evening and the wildlife on a clear night is getting active. This is very new to us in suburbia, we've only had the dog for a couple of years. At night, all the animals are out. We've seen the raccoons and everything. In the house, we got a sauna, like a hot-box sauna, where you zip up in it and you set the temperature and your little head sticks out. I was doing the sauna one night and you sit in there-

Nikki Kinzer: I want a picture of that.

Pete Wright: ... 150 degrees, it's ridiculous. But you sit in there and you just sweat. Like, that's the whole thing. You just sweat. 150 degrees for an hour. So I'm in the middle of this. And I hear downstairs a commotion, then I hear little feet running fast. It's our dog. Then silence. And then a smell comes over the house. And I think, "Oh my God, am I on fire right now in this, in the hot box? I think I'm on fire. Something is on fire." The smell is so bad, "Is my hair on fire?" I don't know what's going on. Chaos ensues and I turn around and hear my wife downstairs saying, "Oh my God, I think Gambit got sprayed by a skunk."

Pete Wright: Has this ever happened to you with your animals?

Nikki Kinzer: Yes, it has.

Pete Wright: This was totally new.

Nikki Kinzer: It's terrible.

Pete Wright: It is terrible.

Nikki Kinzer: It is, terrible.

Pete Wright: And so he went and lodged himself under my side of the bed. He got sprayed full in the face and was dripping the stuff throughout our house, our entire... Just careening through the house with the skunk. So right now, today, it has become the fixating element that distracts me always. I cannot. I look, I turn right and I smell the whiff of skunk. We tried everything that we've read. You do all the treatments, you do everything, and the vinegar and all of this stuff. And then you wait like two months because that's what it's going to take to get rid of every last trace. But I am noticing just how sensitive I am to smell because it is... I mean, we're moving furniture, we're doing the cleaning. It was just horrific. And that has become a staple distracting feature, just being in my house is a fight right now, not to-

Nikki Kinzer: To be in there?

Pete Wright: It is the wost. Yeah. Just to be in there.

Nikki Kinzer: Oh my gosh.

Pete Wright: That was it. The dog is fine.

Nikki Kinzer: How awful.

Pete Wright: Yeah. We don't have anything that's super threatening. We don't have dingoes, coyotes, bears in our yard. We don't do that but we do have now skunks and they were cranky.

Nikki Kinzer: And they like to spray. Yeah, they're cranky. Wow.

Pete Wright: So bad.

Nikki Kinzer: That's interesting because it will be... Next Thanksgiving, I wonder what the story is going to be because this Thanksgiving, it was you and your skunk. Last Thanksgiving, it was me falling through the roof.

Pete Wright: Which was priceless.

Nikki Kinzer: We're not having good luck.

Pete Wright: That is a gift that keeps giving.

Nikki Kinzer: Right. What is it also?

Pete Wright: Don't forget we're in the middle of a pandemic.

Nikki Kinzer: Right, yeah. Exactly. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Pete Wright: Yeah, it's-

Nikki Kinzer: Well, I hope that it's not two months. I hope it's more like two hours.

Pete Wright: Me too. Me too.

Nikki Kinzer: That's awful.

Pete Wright: You'd think you'd get used to it. You don't. I don't get used to it. I don't acclimate to it. It's that bad.

Nikki Kinzer: Now that you're saying that, Charlie's never been sprayed by a skunk, but what he's done is we have a lot of deer. We have a lot of wildlife, where are we. And he'll get into the poop, the deer poop or whatever the poop is. He'll lay on it and it's all over him.

Pete Wright: That's awful.

Nikki Kinzer: And then he comes in. And it's disgusting, but it's not an ongoing thing like the skunk spray. So I'm sorry. That sucks. Oh, can I say that?

Pete Wright: Yes, "sucks" is not one of the words.

Nikki Kinzer: Okay.

Pete Wright: We do have a question from our Discord community and I wanted to, it's appropriate for our topic today. I'm also incredibly lazy and just didn't want to type all of my thoughts out. So I thought we would answer it right now and then post the link back. This one comes from our Discord community, and it is, if memory serves, several of you in the discord world have said that you have become entrepreneurs or gone independent in recent years, including you, at Pete. "I'm considering it again now, but as always, I'm struggling with anxieties about structure, organization, et cetera. How did you guys deal with that?" What do you think?

Nikki Kinzer: Well, my first response is you get help. You don't do it all on your own.

Pete Wright: It's hard. I think having some sort of support is really useful. I would say for me, finding the right time was everything, because I had tried to do this a number of times before and I tried to do it while I was still working, you try to ease out of one and into another. I'm sure I've told this story before. I couldn't do it. Nobody would answer the phone.

Nikki Kinzer: It's really hard to do that.

Pete Wright: Yeah, because you're focused is just not... When you already struggle with focus, having to split that limited focus with a day job and efforts to do your own thing at night are really hard. So it wasn't until I finally just said, "I quit, I'm done with the day job and I'm going to do this full time." The structure... I did what I think everybody recommends at first, which is to just pretend you have a day job and set the hours and the alerts and the alarms and the breaks for lunch and do all of those things until you figure out what your own mode is, right? Because there are people who just want to sleep late and take advantage of that. But then you've got to figure out where the work happens.

Pete Wright: Pretending, just manufacturing a structure around when you are available and most importantly, when you are not, I think is incredibly important. So if you're going to end the day at five, then really end the day, leave the laptop in another room. End of the day. I think having a space that is yours, if you don't have an office, pick a corner, have something that you can set aside as the space that is dedicated to work. Separate phone line is useful if you have a heavy phone presence. You want to set up a Zoom phone account so you have a phone number that rings to you so that you can turn that off at the end of the day, right? And be protective of that.

Pete Wright: So those kinds of things, setting up a separate email address, separate phone, separate space, all of that serves to create the invisible barriers that you no longer have by going to an office every day. And I think a lot of people make that decision. There's a break point where you say, "Okay, now I'm making enough and I have enough structure that I need an office and I need more support." And you get to make that call. I have chosen not to make that call. And the people that I work with are all completely distributed, they're not in the same state. We don't want a physical presence, but at some point you'll be able to make that call yourself. And I think that's another thing that's worth considering.

Pete Wright: I don't know. I'm spit balling here.

Nikki Kinzer: Well, I think one of the things that really helped me was you, Pete, because you started with me at the very beginning, right?

Pete Wright: Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer: When I was an organizer. So you helped with the website. I mean, you were right there from the beginning, and there were so many things that you knew that I couldn't possibly know about the technology. And there were a lot of things that you offered and recommended that helped with the organization. I think when we first started working together, you had introduced me to OmniFocus. I worked with that for a while. You then showed me things. All of this has evolved, but just these little... Even like Mind Node and OmniGraffel-

Pete Wright: Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer: I think is what it's called. All of these things that can kind of help you organize your tasks and your projects was a lifesaver, because I didn't know about those things. And I wouldn't have known about those things if I didn't have you to say, "Hey, check this out. This might help you." So I think it's important to look at that even if you're not tech savvy, because I wasn't, and I was still able to figure out how to use those systems in a very simple way and kept track of things. Definitely.

Pete Wright: I would also add to that, I think, as a parallel point. If you are tech savvy, recognize that you're going to need to figure out when to stop because it's really easy to invest in too many systems. And suddenly you have too many subscription bills monthly, you have all of these things you've subscribed to to help you get organized. And if you live with ADHD and you're trying to start your own business, it can be really easy to get in system overload and not even recognize it until you're way too distributed.

Nikki Kinzer: Well, and with that point too, I think it does take money to start a business. And so even though this might be, what you and I do is so much online and we don't have to have customers coming into our stores, but you do have to understand that it is a business. Whatever business you choose, if it's a service or whatever, it is a business and it is going to cost money. Like you said, be really aware of what systems are going to help you and upgrade them. If something's going to really help you, don't be afraid to do the premium because you're going to get so much more than just doing the basics. And so that's something else I would consider.

Pete Wright: Yeah. The same thing goes with investing in technology, investing in hardware, phones, tablets, computers. If it's for your business, make sure it's bulletproof. Don't get the cheapest because you think you're a startup. Invest.

Nikki Kinzer: Right.

Pete Wright: Do it right. I guess that's it. Without more specific questions, if you have more specific questions, dear listener, please post them back in the Discord. We'll post this link. And thank you for asking the question. I think it's a great one. It's a good one to revisit, especially as we come up towards the end of the year and we look at reflections and frankly look at investing in some things for tax, here in the US. It's almost a new year, is it time to buy a new computer? Let's see what we can invest in ourselves. That's where we are.

Pete Wright: Okay and that actually leads us, I think, really well into our topic for today: breaking down an ADHD challenge. Set us up.

Nikki Kinzer: Okay. Well, it's time for you, Detective Pete Wright, to put on your investigator hat and what's that eyeglass thing?

Pete Wright: The...

Nikki Kinzer: Magnifying glass!

Pete Wright: Magnifying glass.

Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.

Pete Wright: I was like, "a monocle," but no, I'm not an industrialist.

Nikki Kinzer: No, no, no, no. You are going to be looking really close at things to try to solve the case. I love this because it really is about being a detective. We talk a lot about breaking projects down into smaller pieces. This is something that we talk about on the show, blog posts, in conversations with clients. It's obviously a big thing. When we do this breaking down journey, it's making things easier for us to get started, to tackle, it's less overwhelming.

Nikki Kinzer: But what we don't always talk about is breaking down specific ADHD challenges. The reason I brought this up today is that I had a Facebook question. We had posted a video from Jessica McCabe of How to ADD, and the question underneath is, "Well, what about when you get stuck?" The video is about motivation. And then the question was, "What if you get stuck?"

Nikki Kinzer: That's a really big question.

Pete Wright: Right, right.

Nikki Kinzer: Because what exactly are you stuck on? We don't know. So one of the things that we want to do when we're breaking down ADHD challenges is we have to recognize when are we doing that black and white thinking? When I say, "I'm stuck," what does that mean? "I can't get organized," what does that mean? "I can't follow through," on what exactly? I'm not motivated.

Nikki Kinzer: When comments like this are made, we are just thinking way too broad. What we need to do is really zero in on what's really happening. Also recognizing when you're using words like "can't" and "never," what are they, Pete?

Pete Wright: Limiting beliefs, Nikki.

Nikki Kinzer: Yes.

Pete Wright: Yeah. I love this. I've been really sort of, I guess, drilling down on symptomatic thinking too. What are the behaviors that are actually symptoms of something different that's going on? And that I think is where the detective stuff comes in because so much of my behavior might be driven by something not yet addressed. How do you shorten the distance between the initiative, the thing I want to accomplish, and the action or result without getting caught up in symptoms or symptomatic thinking? That's what leads to the limited limiting beliefs and figuring out not to let yourself get trapped by, "Oh, I can't do that because of ADHD."

Nikki Kinzer: Right, right. You're almost surrendering to that. Like, "Okay, I'm just going to... This is just the way it is."

Pete Wright: Right, right.

Nikki Kinzer: Yeah, exactly. As a coach, I always ask a lot of questions. And so now it's your turn, Detective Pete Wright and all the listeners out there, to ask asked these questions to yourself to solve your own case. What is really going on here and how can I do something about it and get rid of the "can't."

Nikki Kinzer: So the very first thing I want to talk about is identify. You really have to be very, very specific about what's challenging you. For example, if the statement is, "I can't organize," here are some questions you can start asking yourself. Are there certain items that are harder for you to organize than others? Which ones are those? Do you notice a difference between your home organization and your work organization? How are they different? We want to see, if something works really well at work, is there a way to transfer that and make that work at home? Is there a time of day that is consistent with your perceived inability to take on certain tasks? This is something you added Pete, and I want you to expand on that.

Pete Wright: Well, I run into this all the time. I think, okay. I guess I can't write. I just can't write. But it turns out that if you look at why I'm in this state of creative block, it's always at the same time in my calendar, say four o'clock in the afternoon. And four o'clock in the afternoon, it turns out, is the most distracted time in the house. I can't find a quiet space. Maybe if I just get stuck in the "can't write" part, there's this big open question of maybe you should try a different time and just see, maybe you should move your schedule around to figure that out. And that rides into consistent distractions. If you're trying everything at four o'clock, well, you know what? At four o'clock, the kids are off school and they're raiding the fridge for snacks, and I'm trying to do my billing. Of course I can't do my billing. I guess I can't focus, I have ADHD is one possible outcome. The other is, I need to go sit in my car because it's completely silent. Even if it's just in the garage with my laptop open, then I might be able to get it done.

Pete Wright: I think you can get even more specific. I ran into this one, this couch right behind me has a great and comfortable material. But if I wear a certain shirt and I'm sitting down to try and do a couch podcast, that shirt gets caught funny and it rides up in the back. One thing is I could say, well, I guess I could just never podcast here because it's just not comfortable, but I could also change my shirt. If I'm not aware that this is what's happening because I'm distracted by the environment and ADHD and whatever it is, I never asked that question. I never stop and get introspective and investigative and curious about it. Instead, I jump straight to judgment. Be curious, not judgmental.

Nikki Kinzer: Be curious. I love that. Yes, be curious not judgmental. That's definitely a great takeaway. I love that. And one of the other examples that we have is I hear a lot that, "I can't follow through with things." I have a hard time believing that you can't follow through with anything. Even though that may be how you feel, it's not true. So what we need to do is again, be very curious without judgment. What specific tasks do you struggle with? What are they, what are the roadblocks that are getting in your way?

Nikki Kinzer: Because as soon as you can start seeing the roadblocks, what you just perfectly described, it's the couch, the sweater that's a roadblock. It's the time of day that's a roadblock. As soon as you can really figure out what those are, then you can start really looking at solutions and opportunities for change. And we want to look at what are the things that you're able to follow through with and what makes those things different. It could be just as simple as your interest, because we know that ADHD minds are driven to what they're interested and engaged in. So then that leads into a whole nother conversation because motivation, as we've talked about, is not necessarily the right question to ask on how to do something. It's how to get started. So if you know that you're not interested in something and that's a roadblock, then the question changes to what can I do to get started on this?

Nikki Kinzer: So the more specific you can be about where you're stuck, the better, because now you can investigate those possible strategies. I'm just going to say, it's a lot more efficient to search for ways to be on time than tips on time management.

Pete Wright: Right, right.

Nikki Kinzer: Right?

Pete Wright: Just sort of throwing tips at the problem.

Nikki Kinzer: Yes.

Pete Wright: Than actually being introspective about what is it that is symptomatic of you not being able to focus or manage your time.

Nikki Kinzer: Exactly. So what are these underpants gnomes all about? I love it that you got it. Do you know who Trey Parker and Matt Stone are?

Pete Wright: No.

Nikki Kinzer: They're the creators behind South Park.

Pete Wright: Okay.

Nikki Kinzer: Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Pete Wright: I know what South Park is.

Nikki Kinzer: You know what South Park is. So South Park, it is an awful show to love. And I do love it. Actually, I went to college with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and so-

Pete Wright: Oh, really? Did you know them?

Nikki Kinzer: Yeah, they were in the film school and I was in the journalism school and we were a year apart. It's just fantastic that they have found such success in their kind of comedy. I remember they came up with... I think they deal with ADHD in their own unique way, and they have put a lot of that into the show. One of my very favorite episodes, the most ADHD of all of their episodes, were some season two, episode 17. That was called Gnomes. Part of the story was that there is a new giant coffee chain called Harbucks moving into South Park and it was competing with the little guy. So the little guy is Mr. Tweak's Coffee, and Tweak is one of the characters, the children, and he's completely buzzed out because the parents just give him coffee all the time. He's got [inaudible 00:24:39]. The kids ask, "Do you think you should give him coffee? Because maybe he's shaking all the time because of all the coffee." And the mom says, |Oh no, he has ADD, attention deficit disorder." It's just amazing. There's a sequence where the kids are literally passed out in their own vomit because they've had coffee all night to stay up.

Nikki Kinzer: The real story, though, is this. And this is what made this episode a meme. Because this has become a massive online meme dealing with the gnomes. The gnomes come in at night and they steal your underpants and then they go and put them in a cave. That's what we find out. They're the underpants gnomes. When the kids finally see the underpants gnomes in action, they say, "Hey gnomes, why are you doing this?" And the gnome say, "Come down and see our business plan. We love big corporations because we're a big corporation." There are gnomes everywhere and there's a mountain of underpants on this underground cavern. They present their business plan and their business plan is, "Step one, collect underpants." And the kids say, "Well, that's great. What's phase two?" And they say, "Hey, what's phase two?" They yell around and they say... Nobody has an answer. And one of them says, "But phase three is profit." He says, "So here's our chart. Phase one, collect underpants. Phase two, question mark? Phase three, profit."

Nikki Kinzer: Okay. Now, you know the underpants thing, it's everywhere. And it's used as a meme to define when companies don't know why they're doing something and they lose a lot of money and go out of business. It's because they didn't know what phase two was. This connects to this episode in a very intimate way for me, which is, oh my goodness, I'm investigating these symptoms of why I can't do things. And it's step one, distraction. Step two, question mark? Step three, oh well, ADHD.

Pete Wright: Right, yes.

Nikki Kinzer: Right? Do you see how it connects back to underpants gnomes, Nikki?

Pete Wright: Yes. Yes. Yes. [crosstalk 00:26:45].

Nikki Kinzer: I guess I don't know! Cereal?

Pete Wright: Don't know!

Nikki Kinzer: You know?

Pete Wright: Yeah, exactly.

Nikki Kinzer: I love that.

Pete Wright: I live this and I think about their little chart, "Step one with the question mark, phase two, phase three profit," all the time. And it hit me so hard here. Why? Because step one, I'm not on time. I'm not a timely person. I have internalized negative limiting belief. Step two is the process. I'm not on time because... We have to focus on the "because." We have to let it carry the weight. Why am I not on time? What is it? Is it because I lose my keys? I don't have a bowl by the door with my keys and wallet in it. Maybe I should try that because step three is the new state. I'm now on time thanks to these accommodations. I have done X, Y, and Z to solve the question mark in phase two. I love this. Figure out the phase two question mark and you solve this problem.

Nikki Kinzer: Absolutely. Oh, that's great. Thank you for bringing that to the show.

Pete Wright: Underpants gnomes.

Nikki Kinzer: It's fantastic. Underpants gnomes. It's so true, it's so true. We're missing that second step and that's exactly what this is about, is identifying and figuring out what that is. I'm going to take it just a little step further, is really understanding why it matters to you. What makes a difference in your life if you make this new state? If you make these changes, which we're going to talk about in just a second, about taking action, how's that going to benefit you? It's a really important piece of also getting down to solving the case. Is identifying and knowing why this is important to you.

Nikki Kinzer: Once we can really take the time to research and investigate, then we can start looking at what are the possibilities. What are the strategies? So we're doing this kind of research piece, but I'm not necessarily saying, "Go on Google, and again type a bunch of sentences to find out what you're looking for." I want you to look inside of yourself because most people that I've talked to that have ADHD will say, "I know exactly what to do. I'm just not sure how to do it, or I'm having a hard time getting started in doing it." And so we have to be careful of that black and white thinking that you don't really know because you probably do. You probably do know some ideas and some tips that have resonated with you. So think about what have you tried before, because most likely you've tried something. What worked, what didn't work. When it worked, what was different? Was it a different time of day? Were you wearing a different sweater? We can tie all of this back into what we were talking about earlier.

Nikki Kinzer: But also ask your community, ask other ADHDers what helps them, what works for you? And our Patreon is an excellent opportunity for you to do that. People want to help others. They want to share their ideas. That could save you a lot of time because you're actually talking to somebody that has experienced the exact same thing and can share what's working for them.

Pete Wright: Absolutely.

Nikki Kinzer: We want to try one strategy. We don't want to try 10. You might get 10 tips on how to leave the house on time, but we want to try one strategy. We want to start small. I'm always an advocate of starting small. Practice, and like you said, be curious about it. No judgment on the outcome. Don't be tied to the outcome. All you're doing at this point is practicing, but we do want to pay attention for the week that you're practicing. So have reminders. I'm not a huge fan of trackers, but sometimes it can really help because if you're trying to track your time or you're trying to track your distractions, those things really do help. You have to know what's getting in your way. So definitely be paying attention. You're investigating a case. That's how I would look at it, is you're really trying to get all the information that you can.

Nikki Kinzer: Evaluate at the end of the week. Once you've tried this strategy, how did it go? What worked, what didn't? One of the biggest things I would say to our listeners is have a place where you save your strategies that work so that the next time this comes out or comes about, you can actually go back to this place and look at the strategies that worked before for your future cases. We're going to wrap back this around to being an investigator. It's too easy to forget. So we want to somehow track the things that work for you, whether that's in a journal, a bullet journal, a file, a computer. I don't know, Pete, what you would do. How do you track your strategies?

Pete Wright: To get started on a strategy or a new process or a tool I'm tracking it in to-do list I create. Things I want to build habits out of, I have a little routines project and I have the repeating tasks in there and that kind of gets me going. And then as something works or doesn't work, if it doesn't work and I find I'm just checking it off everyday and not doing it, that's an indicator that I need to go back and revise that task, so I'll go in and I'll edit the task and see what's it going to take to make this work? And I track, at the end of the day, I have a little pop-up in my Day One app, the journal app pops up in the corner of my screen at four o'clock every day.

Pete Wright: And I use that to just talk about how the day went. What did I accomplish? What did I ship? What is it that I am trying to create for myself as that guide to future success?

Nikki Kinzer: Well, and I liked that you bring up, what did I ship again? Because I think that's a really big point. I know that that has resonated with a lot of people that have listened to the show. What did I ship? Which is such a healthier way of looking at it and to document it.

Pete Wright: Like this live stream, the live stream is something that we're shipping today and it's to our members and it's important. And I'm proud and happy at the end of the day that we did this. And also, tomorrow, I have an edit job to get the podcast ready to go out in those channels and I'm going to ship that.

Pete Wright: And so those tasks, I think that's really important to focus on what are the things that you're introducing into the world and be happy about that. There you go.

Nikki Kinzer: This is great.

Pete Wright: Nice job. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Nikki Kinzer: We appreciate you downloading, listening to the show. Thank you for your time and attention. Don't forget if you have something to contribute to the conversation, head over to the show talk channel and our Discord server. Join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the Deluxe level. 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.