108 - Planning is Self Care - with Antonia Bowring

I loved getting to speak with Antonia for this week...and she helped me get an understanding of the power of the weekly to-do list, which I've been trying and it's working! I'll share my weekly to-do in the forum (link below)

Antonia Bowring is a highly credentialed, top New York executive coach. She works primarily with founders, C-Suite executives, and leadership teams. One of Antonia's areas of expertise is helping neurodiverse leaders create the necessary scaffolding to leverage their gifts and maintain their focus.

She is a frequent speaker to companies and groups on topics ranging from mindfulness, ADHD in the workplace, and communication best practices. Her articles through the Forbes Coaches Council are widely read and The American Reporter named her on of the 10 leadership coaches to watch in 2022.

Antonia's book, "Coach Yourself" is out now and ready for your eyeballs!

Antonia's website: www.ab-strategies.com

Antonia on LinkedIn

Instagram: @antonia_abstrategies

annnnnd Antonia's TikTok! @antoniabowring963

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh man, I am digging these interviews to you guys, especially when I'm having a conversation with a coach and I'm kind of getting a little bit of free coaching out of the deal. You know what I'm saying? Today I'm talking it up with the author of Coach Yourself, an executive coach, and my ADHD buddy Antonio Bowery. Here we go. You are listening to ADHD Brothers, a podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD and comorbid depression symptoms. Uh I'm your host, Russ Jones, author of St. Top, believers that you can actually have a smile in your life despite this diagnosis. So let's make some stuff out of this trouble. Let's blow some stuff, let's laugh at some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. Welcome to the podcast, you guys. Yeah, note to self. I need to breathe a little bit more on those intros. Uh I You know what? I try to get it all out in one big uh big breath, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. You know what? Guess who I got to talk to? You already know that. You already know the answer because you've read the title of the podcast. Dang it! Cannot pull the wool over your eyes. Uh Antonia Bowering. She's a highly credentialed top New York executive coach. She works primarily with founders, C-suite executives, leadership teams. One of her areas of expertise is helping neurodiverse leaders create the necessary scaffolding to leverage their gifts and maintain their focus. And she's here. I guess I'm I'm kind of the CEO of ADHD Big Brothers. So oh, and there's so much more. Uh in addition to coaching, Antonia has a vibrant strategic facilitation practice that includes facilitating the CEO forum of UCLA Anderson School of Management, Chief Core Groups, off site leadership programs, and team cohesion projects. And I think I know about 5% of what I just said. Uh I don't feel dumb right now. But I think one of the coolest things about Antonia is that she wrote a book called Coach Yourself. It's brand new, it's out right now, and I'll talk about it more after the interview. But I I share this philosophy that we we all have the capability to be our own coach. And you know, here's this ADHDer who is showing you how, in a nice, affordable book, accessibility means the world to me. So it just thrills me to no end to be able to have her on the podcast. I feel really lucky that uh we got the opportunity to talk to her and we do touch on the book a little bit, but uh, you know, you know how it goes. This shit ain't got no uh train tracks, y'all. At one point in the conversation, you're gonna hear uh Antonia brings up Barbara Luther. Uh, and I accidentally deleted the context of that. So uh hey, it happens, guys. Okay, this stuff happens. You know, there's not always a command Z button for life, okay? Sometimes we can't undo things. Uh, but just so you have context, Barbara Luther is the director of training and senior leader at ADCA, which is the accredited ADD coach academy. And Antonia took a course with her. You're gonna understand why I'm bringing that up when you get to that part. You'll be like, oh, oh, oh, okay, that's Barbara. Okay, so enough of this pre-interview chatter. Let's start by talking about Antonia's ADHD origin story. Take it away, Antonia.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

I I I have to decide if I tell you one part of it though, because it involves drugs. Oh, go ahead. But under like very controlled circumstance, the true origin story, like most folks, um I didn't no one even said these words when I was growing up, right? No one. And uh I was an excellent student, but I kind of realized in hindsight, I think I worked three times harder than anybody else. But um, my son, who is now 20, was going into high school, so he was kind of a late diagnosis, and people had hinted to us that, and we were like, oh no, he's just got a lot of energy. And uh, anyways, he got diagnosed, and I was like, hmm, that kind of sounds like me. And then I looked into it, it's quite expensive, and I thought, oh well, why do I need to know now? I'm I'm fine, right? I like I know how to get stuff done. And then about two years later, two, three years later, I did a MDMA psilocybin journey with a guide impulsively, I didn't really know what to expect, and came out of it and got my diagnosis within a month. Something triggered me to take action. And it was the greatest thing, like such a great gift. Uh a lot of things make sense.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Oh, that's what I was gonna ask, what happened? So once you got the diagnosis, how did you how did you respond to it?

SPEAKER_03 5:07

I wasn't surprised, and you know, a huge sense of relief, like, oh, so I'm not like a total loser. Oh, it's not that it's not that I have zero impulse control because I'm a bad person.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

It was, oh, I lack impulse control because my brain is wired differently. Okay, all right. Doesn't make it okay, but what can I do about it? And it it would and and it's actually had a big impact on my work. Um, I work with a lot more leaders and executives who have ADHD and trying to figure out how to reach a broader audience, uh-huh, you know, at a different kind of price point, too.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Right, right. That's so uh it's also interesting that everybody kind of it feels like it's almost the first thing that we deal with is like, okay, I can I can check character flaw off the list. Now I'm not a big pile of shit. I I am actually okay. Now I can be cool with myself, and that yeah, oh that was a big issue for me. Um there so you wrote a book called Coach Yourself, which I I just love the title that that in and of itself is is uh that's my heart is in that place of a way to help people. Um, so that's an enormous undertaking. You've got ADHD. How the hell did you do it? What's the big secret?

SPEAKER_03 6:46

So I don't take medication every day. I take it when I'm overwhelmed or when I I I can feel just it's usually to do with administration. Yeah. But I want to say something interesting. Remind me. We have to keep reminding each other because we'll write it down. Remind me about airplanes. But um I well I took medication and when I took medication, I wrote like a feed. And and I did it every morning. I I would get up and I used to exercise first thing in the morning, and then I started writing. And that's when my brain is really working the best by far. And so I'll tell you that can I tell you this funny thing about airplanes or or no?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

I was just about to remind you. Oh, Antonia, aeroplanes.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Yeah, so chunks of the book I also wrote in hotels and on aeroplanes. And I've subsequently talked to other folks with ADHD who have also confirmed they love working, writing on aeroplanes and in hotel rooms.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Yeah, and I think on the aeroplanes, well, and in the hotel rooms, like there's nothing else going on, right? I mean, you know, there's no laundry, there's no laundry, there's no meal preparation. There's it, it's just you looking after you and and figuring out your day. So I had a great like writing time in Boulder where I would write, write, write, and then at two or three go hike and then come back. Like it was just fantastic. And on planes, the way I write is I just go, like I know what I'm gonna write about, but I don't try and do it nicely. I I do a lot of revisions, and I could just write a lot, and someone also mentioned the noise. There's something about that white noise, brown noise on planes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

All right, so we have to figure out now what is uh I can't afford to go on a plane and write a book. What so the I the workaround would be get to a place where well I can put brown noise, you can get brown noise on your iPhone.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

You can get brown noise. I can I can also say you have a friend that lives in another part of town. Uh go stay in their guest room when they're out of town. I I'm you know you're lucky enough to have someone who can look after kids. Um mine are now older, so that makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

It's like get to a place where you're stuck and there's nowhere else to go.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

But but let's say, let's let me reframe that because that's what I do. I reframe. Um get to a place where you can focus on you instead of saying get stuck, right? Like it's a gift.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Trap yourself somewhere in a large cylinder where you can 30,000 feet above the ground. In your book, so in the the ADHD section of your book, yeah. Uh I the you have you talk about these four components uh recognition, acceptance. Can you that was simplicity is everything to me, and you've simplified it very brilliantly. So I was wondering if you could expand on that. Like that for me, it's recognition, acceptance, education, and integration.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Oh gosh, I could spend a long time on on each of these, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

So I'll tell you what, I can tell you the the part that hits me the most. Okay. Uh, and it kind of relates to my journey with through ADHD. Uh it's why maybe I related it to it so much. Is the um uh and so some of the people that I coach and and in the forum are people like people that listen to the podcast, they go, Oh, I'm late in life diagnosed. Oh, I found it. So they've recognized it late in life. That there's the recognition part. I recognize that I have ADHD. Then they go, okay, I have it, they accept the fact they have it. Great. Then there comes this tsunami of education where they read every book, Russell Barkley, Dr. Hallowell, they watch all the YouTube videos, Jessica McCabe, and and but the integration part, it's like, but there's the stall point for all of us is well, so now what the fuck do I do? How do I how do I make the like you talk about scaffolding? Like, how do I implement all this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Okay, yeah, I can. And I need to take one step back. Okay, and and I need to say, I think this is my language. I I I like I think in frameworks or something. I I need I think about ADHD as having two big buckets, the profound and the practical. And by profound, I mean exactly where you and I started. Oh, I'm not like a terrible person. Oh, how do I integrate this into my life narrative to make more sense of it and and to feel better about myself? And like you cannot, we cannot underestimate how important that is. Um because it we're never gonna be perfect, like we're never gonna get rid of ADHD. That's not the point, right? The point is finding ways to uh take advantage of some of the great gifts of it and also manage the challenges, right? I I don't talk about it as oh, it's just a superpower, I think that's BS. And uh nor do I talk about it, oh, it's just this huge problem. To me, if I had a dream, it would be, and I'm gonna answer your question. Don't worry, I'm gonna get there. To me, my my my dream would be that we just normalized it and we just said, Oh, you've got ADHD. Oh, okay. Uh, should I know about any accommodations when we're in meetings or or anything that that you want me to do when we work together? Like, it's just like if you told me you were colorblind or you told me you, you know, you didn't to hear quite as well out of like just yeah, my brain's wire different. Good, bad, it just is. That's my personal dream. Um and to get there, but there is this profound piece, right? Where you have to kind of do some inner work about integrating it. Uh, there's so much shame and and and yeah, like yeah, there's a lot, even yeah. And then hello, we gotta pay the bills, we gotta do the taxes, we gotta go to work, we gotta run our houses, and you know, I am like I'm just not gonna say there, there's no magic wand, right? But there are different things to try. Some are environmental, some are kind of reframing, some might be technologies. And the the the point is you can't do it all at once, right? I've had clients like that. Oh, well, I'm buying alarms and I'm buying stickers, and I bought a new planning system, and I've got these three new apps, and I'm gonna meditate and I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna wake up in the morning and have a cold shower. I mean, no, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Like, try, try one. Yeah, be kind to yourself, try a couple environmentally. If you wanted to, I'm I know we have to be careful about I'm not, I don't mean anything body negative here, but if you wanted to get healthier and fitter, you wouldn't lay out all the Halloween candy all over your kitchen counter that you had to walk by every time you went to the fridge to get your carrots, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

You would control your environment. All kinds of research done. Put things away, put them in a lockbox, keep them out of the room. Like, how can you help your environment get set up for your success? That's one. You want to comment on that?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

No, I think it's great because I'm doing the work and I'm doing the homework right now. I'm like, oh yeah, as I look in my room. Uh, I I when you say get healthier, I'm thinking me because I do. Um, my September goal was to have my, it's just one goal. And I'll I'll tell you this, I can speak to this actually, because my September goal was have my meal plan for a day done. I'm simplifying all my meals into one day. It is the one thing that I'm doing. Um, I haven't really been working out because uh there's too much on my plate. But I'm like, once I get my meal planning done, I'm moving on to that now will be a working ship, and I will add my working out. And I'm I'm thinking about the environment and going, if this uh I have to work out in my uh apartment. I just I need to be it needs to be simple. I need to be able to just go, that's where I do it. And so I have a pull-up bar, I have the rings attached to it, I have the bands and all that stuff. I need to make it look fun and cool.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Yeah. And and how do you how do you even increase the dopamine hit higher? Okay. Can you listen to a great playlist? Can you watch the Netflix series that you know is a complete waste of your time? Um, and you shouldn't be like binging through it uh, you know, instead of getting good sleep. Um, can you integrate dance moves? What can you do to get to to get an even higher dopamine hit from it, right? To to make it feel rewarding. That I mean, these are these are such like I I don't say this, these are so such basic moves, but they're not easy.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

No, that's the thing. They're very and that's what makes us feel like shit, is because it's like I know how to do it, I know what to do, I know when to do it, and I'm still not doing it. Therefore, that equals I suck as a human, and that is the big first of all, you're trying, yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Lots of people who don't have ADHD don't try, right? To eat healthy, right? Yeah, here's the other thing. Um, I want to say a name because I think this woman is a god. Um, her name is Barbara Luther. She is like knows so much about ADHD. And every time we had a class, she cried. Oh wow. Because she got so moved, so empathetic about the struggles of ADHD. Yeah, she's she's just the most awesome person.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Um, Barbara Luther, you should you should have her on.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Um anyway, I'm like done.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

She she said, and this is I I uh I use this word ADHDers like sparkles, we like sparkly things, we like novelty, right? So I I have to change up my organizational system, and that's okay. I used to just be notion all online in Notion, and then I got a bit bored with it, and then now I'm in a combo of Notion and index cards.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Oh, really? That's I've got my index cards right there, but I'm I'm a bullet journal guy now, and I I I I want to say I agree it wholeheartedly that a lot of times we'll think, oh, the system, I'm not into it anymore, therefore I suck, as opposed to that system's boring now. Let's do something fun and creative, right? Yes, that's totally, totally that's it. I five of that, I'm on board.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Yeah, so that's okay, just know it's gonna happen. Yeah, like I don't know very many ADHDers that oh, I have a system, it works, I never change it. We get bored, we want to do it differently. Oh, maybe I'll try the task function in my calendar. It's okay. Yeah, it's okay. Um, and we need to be ready for that. So, you know, you know that guy, what's his name? Jeff Allen. Is that his name? The one that wrote how to get every how to get things done?

SPEAKER_00 20:14

David Allen.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

David David Allen, yeah. What are his two most? This is my humble opinion. What are his two most important contributions?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

That I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

What is it, the the inbox bin or the well uh well, okay, let's call it three then.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

You don't yeah, well, one is, and this is for my mind, your mind might work differently. Okay, I think the weekly to-do list is a genius invention. There's something about looking at a like that arc of a week that really helps. You you don't get so in the weeds, but you have, oh well, I I have those four meetings week after next. Okay, that means I better get this done this week. Not Monday this week. Yeah, there's something about creating a weekly to-do list that I don't know how to explain it from a neuro neuroscience point of view, but it oh yeah, I don't lines things up.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

How many neurozippy zappies are firing in the prefrontal abigdula? Um three. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

I like that. Okay, second thing, and then I'm gonna say the third, which is the most important. The second is, and you made me remember it. Everyone should have, I have an in notion all laid out, a waiting for list.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Waiting for.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Yeah. How often do we send things out, but it's not done, right? Like our part might be done for a while.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

But what am I waiting for? And do I have a list? To scan, or is it a way I can have as an option in my little nice little to-do database or whatever? Waiting for is a super important category because we're waiting for a lot of shit all the time.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, I want full disclosure here. I only just kind of started uh attempting at looking at a weekly uh at a weekly thing. And it was only because out of necessity, right? Because as the podcast has grown, people are starting to want to be on the show, and I'm I'm going, okay, I need to prepare, I need to read or whatever. And then I'm in college, so there's assignments, and that's how I fucked up my college, right? Is not knowing that assignments are due on Sunday, so I should have 45 minutes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

So this is brand new to me, and I'm starting to see the benefit of that. So that's super cool, but it's it that's fresh for me.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

People somehow think that planning happens magically. Oh, my desk should be organized, and oh, I should have that weekly to-do list. Yeah, when when are you doing it? Yeah, if there is one takeaway from this whole podcast tonight, it is planning is an activity that requires time. And I know that sounds so stupidly obvious, but I can't tell you how many people don't realize that and think, oh, I'll plan in five minutes. No, you won't.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, okay. Then we're we're we're gonna dig into this a little bit because I 1000% agree with that, and I 1000% and 2%. Um, these are random numbers. 1,000 isn't real, and I understand that. Structure feels like a prison, I would say for people like us. I don't know how how you resonate with that or not, but feeling like I have to plan feels like I'm taking away my freedom in my life and I'm dictating my time. I know that that's not true because I felt the benefit. Can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Yes, yes, I wanna I want to reframe it. Oh, thank you. Okay, I want to reframe it as planning is self-care. Planning is a huge way that you can demonstrate to yourself self-care, and planning can be do you like coffee?

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I love coffee.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Yeah, me too. Um with like a really good cup of coffee, you know, on like a Sunday morning or like it's you time in a way, you know, and it's tapping into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Like intrinsically, don't you want to start the week with feeling you have all four wheels on the ground? Yes, and then you can drive really fast, or do you want to start the week with cortisol levels high, you know, like stress, tension, that pain in your gut. No, planning is self-care. And if you do it with coffee, all the better. And and and it's it's saying, and and then you can also build in some intrinsic, extrinsic, right? You can say, Well, I'm gonna do this planning, and I know it's good for me, but I know it makes me feel good. I know it, I know it is laddering up to be the person I want to show up as. And if I do it, then I can, I don't know, watch Netflix or or make make cookies episodes. You you you you can reward yourself too, too, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

So uh, but first step, okay, let's start super simple. Put it in a calendar. Or if you don't use a calendar, put it on a post-it somewhere where you are gonna see it and it's gonna remind you, Russ, you gotta do this before Sunday night's over, or you know, the weekend's over. Yeah, most people don't plan on Fridays, they're too tired, they're so happy to have just got through the week. And I'm I'm talking about my the folks I work with, right? That are yeah, I uh can I tell you about a client I had and how she did it?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Uh I do because I uh no, no, I don't mind. I would love that. I I would also love to make sure that we talk about the specifics of what is what is a session of planning look like specifically, questions and things like that. Okay, if you don't mind, okay, yeah, but tell me about your client.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Okay, so let me just say she was having a darn hard time. She worked at a huge corporation, she had ADHD, and she couldn't make it stick on the weekends, and then we thought, okay, let's do, let's think about the tiny habits approach, layer it on to something you're already doing, right? Guess what she layered it on to? Church. She loved going to church, she went every Sunday. She it was like and she would stay in church for an extra half hour with her planner. That's awesome. Awesome, right? Yeah, that's really cool and creative.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Super, right? Right. It wasn't punishment, you see.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

So what do you need to plan? Well, you need uh either a piece of paper or you can I'm I'm you have to decide is it all electronic or do you use paper?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Personally, yeah, it's my bullet journal, Antonia.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

We'll we'll use me. How do I plan?

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

So if I'm doing this tomorrow, tomorrow's Sunday. How am I gonna do it?

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Okay, first of all, let's just assume you have put half an hour, 45 minutes, uh in your calendar, right? And and and when is that like in the morning before lunch? Just make it up.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Let no, I'll tell you right, I'm gonna do this. Uh I'm gonna do it when I wake up. So I'll get up around 5:30 a.m. I'll have a cup of coffee. So let's say I'll start it at six o'clock. I'm doing a planning session for 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Beautiful. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

This is old hat to me. I can put a session in place. That's done. Now we're in it.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

Okay. Do you use a calendar?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

I do have a I use the calendar app on my phone, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Okay, like like iCal? Yeah, okay. You you don't use the Google one.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Uh, I don't think so. It all kind of integrates, and I think it's through. I don't a hundred percent no.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Okay. So do you do use your calendar with invites? Do you use invites on your calendar?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

I don't typically use invites, no.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Okay. So here's a little extra thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Um I'm gonna come back to the planning session. I noticed that for tonight's you know, uh uh podcast, you didn't send me an invite, right? It there was a lot more work involved. Oh, I didn't have one, I emailed you, I then you sent me the Zoom link. Well, guess what? I I'm sure you can do it with the Apple calendar too. You can integrate um meeting invites uh for Zoom into your calendar. Okay, so that just simplifies life in many, many ways.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Okay, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

And and and there's an organizational thing here because again, I'm not you, you have to experiment, but yeah, many ADHDers also use their calendars as a key organizing tool.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Oh no, that's brilliant because I would have also been online at six. For some reason, I had it stuck in my head that we were gonna do six, but it was really 5:30. So thank God we communicated before.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Right. So you see, your calendar is a key piece of your um planning meeting with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Okay. And there's lots of different opinions about should-dos be in your calendar? I don't really think to-do should be in your calendar, but I do think you block, let's say you know, oh, I have a paper due at the end of next week. Because you're you got your calendar, you've got your paper where you're gonna write your to-dos, or you know, you're doing it electronically in a spreadsheet or in an app or whatever. Those are your two key pieces, right? Okay, and now if this wasn't your first week, you would also have last week's weekly to-do list, right? Because by the way, I never get everything done online. Okay I have been dealing with the a fraud issue on my credit card with Citibank, and it just keeps rolling every week on my calendar because it stresses me out so much that I keep avoiding it. I sure I think yeah, but it's there, so I can't forget it.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

But so your last week's to-do list, weekly to-do list, your calendar, and this week's. That's all you need. And think of your weekly to-do list in I call them buckets. Okay, maybe you want to have home, maybe you have school, maybe you have podcasts, maybe you have starting my book, I don't know. Whatever you whatever your buckets are. Mine is usually writing, clients, kind of clients I have to do things for, biz dev, home. So I have those buckets, and I think, okay, what's gotta get done this week? And I am thinking ahead. Okay, I have a major workshop in a month. I don't really need to think about that yet. I might have to think about that in a couple of weeks, but not yet. Or maybe there's one thing I need to do this week. Tell someone at the company, you know, have you got the participant list ready? Send it to me. So putting your to-dos in buckets is first, and then you look at your calendar. So you, Russ, say, okay, I got a paper due in three weeks, right? That's in your calendar, huh? Well, what do I have to do this week? I don't know. Maybe it's start the research, maybe it's interview people, maybe it's create a plan with your teammates. Okay, that's on your weekly to-do list. And then you look at your weekly to-do list and you look at your calendar and go, what do I put in my calendar? Maybe not everything, but some things, like if it involves other people, that should be triggering a meeting. And that's why you want to be using your calendar with invites to things like meetings.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

So, in terms of like doing the in terms of planning my week, uh, and then in my day, I'm putting buckets. I'm saying, okay, so um Monday from eight to nine, I'm gonna take care of school bucket. That kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

Wait, so the weekly one is not divided by day, it's just the week. When you do your planning session for the week, you're looking at the weekly list, and you may slot meetings and things into your calendar, but you're not going intricately day by day, right? You're you're thinking about it as a week. But you may want to, you know, create meeting invites or whatever, and then you go, okay, tomorrow is Monday. What do I have to get done on Monday? It's some subset of your weekly list, and that's where you go, okay, you know, I I um I don't know, whatever it is I have to do. And and so the the daily list becomes very fast to do. And guess what? You probably won't get everything done in your daily list, but you just carry it over to the next day. I always write that out. It it just helps it sink in my brain. But the weekly to-do list is a game changer for a lot of people because it's not so vague that you can't keep your arms around it, but it's bigger than a day. It gives you a way to look at the week.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

You know what's so not stressful about that is that the it's so easy to envision ourselves doing something in the future and seeing that I have the motivation to do it. So doing a weekly list or a weekly thing makes me feel like that would be less stressful because it's sort of it's a it encompasses seven days, and it's there's something more uh calming about it, I think. I the thing that I love about the weekly idea is that I'm not slotting days, I'm creating a bigger picture. That's new information for me. So that is super helpful. I'm gonna play with this, so I thank you for that.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

And let me know. And you know, some people write more than one to-do list in a day, they just do one in the morning and then revise it in the afternoon. And if something comes in and out during one day, it doesn't go on a list, it just got done.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Oh man, mine's I so I have my bullet journal with me everywhere. So my to-do list, it's it's a breathing, living thing that's always adding and going away. It's it's always in flux.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Well, look, the the the other thing that what I'm telling you about eliminates is the people who have to-do lists with 80 items on, but there's no sense of priority.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

Like 80 items on a to-do list are not all as important as each other, right? And guess what ADHDs tend to do? We just go to the ones that we like to do, and we don't do the other.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

That's where the I look at that as a brain dump, and then you like Eisenhower matrix it, right? The urgent and important, you and then you have to go, uh, I gotta do these things. The the what the the not urgent but important shit. The uh everyone should get the coach yourself book. It's coming out. This is actually gonna be it. I think it's out if if this is gonna release the week it's published on Tuesday. Okay, so Tuesday is the 26th. Okay, this will come out the Monday after, so I can tell everyone to go get it.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

It will be on Amazon. Please write a review. This takes a village. It I mean, please.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

I will happily write a review once I've completed the entirety of it. I will leave a review. Before you go, there is uh I you're on TikTok. I'm not on TikTok, but you are. What is your TikTok, really quick?

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Yeah, Antonia Bowering 963. So A-N-T-O-N-I-A-B-O-W-R-I-N-G 963. I post every day two or three times with ADHD tips, tricks. Can I tell you when I did today? Oh, this was I thought this was good, but I I'm just building up my my, you know, slowly.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

I there's one that I want to I want to ask you about because I've I'm not on TikTok, but I went and checked it out because you don't have to have an account to look at your stuff. But you said something that was profound to me, and it was uh live in the present, not in your preference, which is a huge fucking ADHD deal.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Boy, we can waste a lot of energy thinking about how we want things to be and waiting, waiting for when we're perfect, waiting for when we're organized, waiting for when we do all the taxes without no, come on, it's never gonna happen. We have to live in our present, right? And there is something super freeing about that, and we also have the agency to respond to our present, right? And there's something so beautiful about being where you are and not somewhere else, and responding, taking action, taking initiative, using agency in the present for us ADHDers, that can also mean like micro steps to get to where we want to go. But if you focus too much on your preference, sometimes you can lose hope and motivation in the present.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Yeah. Oh, that is so profound to me. Uh, and it's so simply said, it's so easily simply said. So, and it means so much. So, thank you for that. And you have another one, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

So, this one is I I I really am a practical person at heart. Remember names, like there is no way to show positive intent to someone more than when you meet them remembering their name. And guess what? I am so bad at that. It it immediately creates a positive connection, and I I see in the the one today a few tips and tricks about it, like repeat it out loud, you know, uh rhyme it with something, uh, create uh uh like a a visual image, or pull out your phone afterwards and like put it in. But like, for example, I I have some uh friends or colleague friends, I can't remember the name of their kids, and I should know that, right? But and so I'll say, Oh, how's the fam? Because I can't remember the name of their kids. I want to get better at that stuff because it it is the most basic way we show that we care, that we're paying attention to you.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Yeah, I I I have an agreement and disagreement with that because I agree with you and I know how good it feels when someone uh that I have an I'm an acquaintance with had calls me by my name. I'm like, oh, they care. There is that sense of care, but that's like the the the uh I don't know how to phrase this. Um, I have to be cool with myself and know that I do care, even though my working memory is shit. And I have a lot of I think the workarounds are as uh self-effacing humor allows me to then reconnect and go, it's not you, it's me. And I care. I'll I I can't tell you how many times there's a person that I'll know, and I'll have a history with them. A history, and in a moment of brain fartery, a name will go away, and I'm like it makes the entire relationship as if it doesn't count because you can't call a name. And I I empathize or I I I feel for that because I I struggle with it myself in a debilitating degree, you know.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

See, thanks for saying that because I feel a lot of self-judgment about not remembering names.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03 42:54

Oh, yeah. I I feel like, oh, there we go. See that little piece of me saying that part of me saying, There you go, not paying attention. Oh, look, they remembered the names.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Oh man. Yeah, thanks. That's ADHD trickery at its best, isn't it? Holy shit, yeah. Give yourself grace all the way. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Yeah, um, yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, thanks for that.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Um you know what I could talk your ear off uh about a million things.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Uh I know I don't live in LA. We'd be hanging out all we would be ever come to New York.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I don't know, but you know what? My five-year plan, I'm getting an RV. When I hit the road, I'll I'll look you up when I'm on the road.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

And then we'll we'll go out for a really nice coffee and have a planning session together. How about that? Or not, or not, or we will talk about random shit and it'll be just as great. Oh my god. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and helping us all. And um, I'm gonna be all your links will be in the show notes. Everyone will know how to find you, where to find you. If they want, if if we didn't even touch upon executive coaching, if people want to look into you, oh yeah, they can you'll all be there. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

And you know, thanks for what you do. Thanks for just you know, building this community, broadening this community, making people feel like there's a safe place to go with the profound and the practical.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yeah, that's brilliant. Thank you so much, Antonia. That was a lot of fun. I gotta say, you know, the biggest takeaway that I'm getting from this conversation, besides the fact that Antonia is so much fun to talk with, it's this goddamn weekly planning. Since this conversation, I've tried it. I've done this for a week, and it's the first time that I think that a weekly bucket type situation done in this way has worked for me. So thank you, Antonia. Guys, we got executive level coaching today. That's awesome. Next step. Okay, so let's all buy her book, Coach Yourself. It's available now. Forum members, we should do a book club on it or something. I want to add that it's not just an ADHD book. It's got an ADHD component to it, but it's just some serious leadership coaching. It includes sections on coaching frameworks, core values, navigating challenging conversations, which in management and even in life, we have to have these tough conversations, give critical feedback sometimes, and she has multiple chapters dedicated to that, which is just awesome. And another section she's got on unlocking the keys to great management, diagnostic frameworks to unlock team needs. There's a lot going on in this book, and it's juicy. So I definitely recommend it. And if you guys want to further your own conversation with Antonia, all her socials and her links, they're in the show notes. Clickety clack away. Uh and with that, I hope you guys have a fantastic week, and I shall talk to you later.