Ep 129. Energy Budgets & Menus: Planning for the Different Versions of You (ADHD)

👥 GROUP COACHING
👤 1:1 COACHING
✉️JOIN MAILING LIST

If you have ADHD, you probably know this feeling:

Some days you’re focused, capable, knocking it out of the park.

 

Other days? 

Low energy. 

Low focus. 

Drained. 

Absolutely can't get going.

The most frustrating part is not knowing which version of you is going to show up.That unpredictability can really erode self-trust.

In this episode, I’m sharing two practical tools I use in coaching (especially with late-diagnosed women):

1. Energy Budgets – understanding what tasks actually cost you

2. Menus – creating flexible versions of routines so it’s not all-or-nothing

I'm talking about:

• Why executive functioning tasks cost more energy

• How to offload or redesign high-drain activities

• The “3-course meal, brunch, and snack” model for routines

• How to be able to rely on yourself without being rigid

When you work with the reality of variable energy levels, you. move out of the "all or nothing" approach to the things we care about.

Let me know in the comments: Do you have strategies that help you manage ever-changing energy levels. 

⏱ Time Stamps:

00:00 – The different versions of you
 00:45 – Why ADHD can erode self-trust
 01:15 – Executive functioning costs more energy
 01:50 – What is an energy budget?
 02:00 – Shopping as an energy drain (example)
 03:00 – Boring tasks and invisible energy costs
 03:45 – Introducing “menus”
 04:15 – The 3-course morning routine
 05:00 – The “brunch” version
 05:30 – The “snack” (skeleton) version
 06:15 – Avoiding all-or-nothing
 06:45 – Exercise example
 07:30 – Recap: energy budgets + menus

#ADHDWomen #ExecutiveFunction #LateDiagnosedADHD #ADHDSupport #EnergyManagement #WomenWithADHD #NeurodivergentWomen #ADHDStrategies #MentalLoad #FlexibleRoutines

Transcript

Menus/ Energy Budget

[00:00:00] if you have ADHD, you know that different versions of you show up every day. And what could be really frustrating and really hard is you don't know who's coming. You don't know who's showing up. And this is one of the things that really erodes self-trust for people when they have a DHD because one day they're really excited and they have high energy and they have high focus, and they can knock it out. They can do better than anyone around them in, in what they're choosing to do and the next day. Man, they're blindsided by low energy, low focus, low motivation, and it's just can be very frustrating

I wanna start by saying that when you have ADHD, you often are spending more energy doing things that don't necessarily cost people around you the same energy, someone who's neurotypical the same energy. . It doesn't mean therefore we're not gonna do the things that matter to us, but it means when we're looking at assessing how much energy we have, how we structure our day, how we approach things, we need to be realistic about the fact that if, if executive functioning skills are hard for you and you have to do a lot of heavy work in that way in the day, you're gonna [00:01:00] spend more energy in that day and that you might have less to use for something else.

So we wanna look at ways we can work with that reality that every day is different, sometimes reality in a way that still moves us forward in the things that matter to us. So there's a couple ways that I do this for myself and with clients. One is we look at this idea of energy budgets, and we do kind of an inventory in the kind of things that take a lot of our energy, and the ones that don't, how much flexibility do we have?

Can we offload things that are high energy to other people? Can we approach 'em in a way that doesn't burn so much energy? , Looking at your overall energy budget and what you're bringing to the day and trying to tweak and make adjustments. So what you're doing, what you're trying to get done, fits that.

I'm gonna give you like a practical example of what that looks like. So for me. Shopping is always an energy drain. I, this is not a universal A DHD thing. A lot of us deal with this because of like attention regulation, but some people with A DHD love to shop. I hate shopping. I really do. It is a huge drain on my energy when I walk into any kind of store, it's [00:02:00] designed to pull my attention in lots of different directions, and it's always successful.

I don't care how I come into a shopping situation. I'm gonna struggle with having my attention pulled in lots of directions and the energy drain that get overwhelmed and then you add onto that, like making decisions and prioritizing and something that's already kind of hard for me. The, the net result is I leave a shopping situation like way.

Weigh dip down in energy no matter what kind of shopping. And so I know that. And when I look at how I structure my day and what I have going on in my day, the way I deal with it is I just try to offload that as much as I can.I try to avoid physical stores as often as I can.

Maybe I'm gonna delegate that as somebody else. I'm gonna do a pickup order. I'm going to shop with like a very specific list. Only get those things and immediately leave, that takes a little bit more of my energy just to be able to do that. So I don't even try to make myself do that if I can avoid it. I just try to change my environment or change the task so I don't have to get an energy [00:03:00] drained from doing that thing.

another thing that kind of drains my energy is, uh, boring things. Right. So I know when I go to approach something that is inherently boring to me, it's going to impact my energy. That doesn't sound, uh, intuitive, right? Like why would something boring drain your energy? It just does.

It does for me. So I know if I'm doing something that inherently has a lot of weight or like being put on hold or that kind of thing, I'm gonna consider that. The, the drain it has on my energy, I'm gonna change it when I can, right? Like, if I have something that I can be doing while I'm waiting, that helps me.

Um, I'm gonna do it when I maybe have more energy for that kind of a task. But I mean, consider what a task takes from me and what energy I have dedicate to it whenever I can. Now, sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you can't control your that day that way, but sometimes you can structure your day to make sure that those high energy demands aren't lining up on days where you don't have it to give.

Menus

So another way that we can keep this flexibility and kind of honor the different energy that we have on different days is looking at menus. [00:04:00] Of doing something. a common, uh, coaching topic is looking at morning routines, how you're starting your day intentionally, 

we're gonna get down to what really matters to that person, what they want to have in place. Maybe it's, eating a certain breakfast or getting ready in a certain way, checking their account or whatever it is for them that they, that's gonna set them up to have the kind of day that they like to have.

And we look at. Okay, this is the day, like the ideal day. I think of these as menus, right? So this ideal morning routine is like a three course meal. Like this is, man, I have high energy. Things went well. I have a lot of energy, attention, resources for this, right? This is what this looks like.

Then we have a lighter version, like a, maybe a brunch version. Where there are still the things that matter to you, but they might look different. Like maybe you're just gonna write one thing you're grateful for, instead of journaling for 10 minutes, maybe you're just gonna check for appointments [00:05:00] rather than sorting through all your things to do at that moment, 

Maybe you're going to dry shampoo and um, have like a quick bird bath versus your shower. Like this will look different, but it's still going to be doing the things that matter to you. It's a, a different version of it. Now, there's the last version is the snack version. I also think of this as like

the skeleton of your morning routine. This is gonna be. It things did not go well, right? This is normally on a typical day that looks like this, I wouldn't do any of it, and I just would just ignore all of it. And so you wanna think ahead and think, okay, this day I woke up with a migraine, my kid predicted how I vomited all night.

 for whatever reasons, this day is not my ideal day, what do I still want? And need to happen on this day, right? When we do a little bit of this thinking and we don't like this thinking because we, it's not fun to think this way. We wanna think about the great day.

We wanna think about the, the highly designed knocking out of the [00:06:00] park day. When we think about the skeleton day, it's hard for us to be flexible about that and think like, okay, this is this very light snack version of things that matter to me, it doesn't feel like enough. But if you allow yourself to think ahead and create that version, you'll keep it from being all or nothing.

What happens for many of us is we have this perfect version of that morning routine, and if that doesn't happen, nothing happens. We're not even getting this little snack version done. We're not doing any of it 'cause we're gonna do it perfect tomorrow. We're gonna do that great version tomorrow. , a really common, uh, coaching goal that a lot of people have. They wanna work on developing an exercise routine that works for them, getting movement in 

Assuming it matters to you and you wanna work on this. Thinking about menus, thinking about what that movement could look like on different days can be really helpful and keep you from. A week of working out five times in three weeks of doing nothing. When you allow yourself allow your brain to wrap around the idea that this could look different, [00:07:00] that that continuing to move 'cause that mattered to you, could look like a walk or a stretch, or it could look like a 45 minute gym routine, or it

 it could look like a bike ride. It could, there are different versions that are gonna fit the different versions of you that show up every day and that you can trust yourself to switch those out in order to keep going on the things that matter to you. the two things I would encourage you to think about if you have some layers going on is thinking about your overall energy budget, the kind of things that you wanna get done, and how much energy they take you, the kind of things you need to get done, and how much energy they require of you.

Can you change that thing? Can you change your environment? Can you offload the things that are high energy? Can you use some flexibility when you think about your overall energy budget and what you're bringing to the table each day, and what these things require of you? The other thing that's gonna really help create that flexibility and lets you manage a life that looks different on different days is looking at menus, looking at versions of the things that you [00:08:00] want to get done. this approach lets you think ahead of how to be realistic and flexible with days that look different with energy levels, that look different, with attention levels that look different.

We can approach this in a way that is more tuned into who you are, what's going on with you, and what your day looks like, rather than this, this rigid rule , If you have ideas that work for you.

That help you approach this variation in your energy and in your attention showing up in a different way on different days. Share them in the comments. We would love to hear them. We're learning from each other. And that's it for today. Thanks for joining me.