How Casey Neistat Nails Productivity Advice For ADHDers

You know what your most important work is. You still spend the first four hours of the day doing everything else.

Casey Neistat recently posted a video called *Navigating the Matrix* showing how he organizes his workday as a creator with ADHD. He tracks his tasks in real time, explains the system he uses to manage everything, and ends by accepting the chaos as part of the deal.

Skye and Robert disagree with that conclusion.

In this standalone episode, they break down the hidden problem underneath Casey’s system — why ADHD business owners keep ending up trapped in urgent work, why prioritization systems collapse under pressure, and why the issue is usually structural, not motivational.

What We Cover:

- Why ADHD urgency bias overrides even well-designed prioritization systems
- How Casey’s four-color framework mirrors the Eisenhower Matrix — and where both break down
- Why task capture and task prioritization are two completely different cognitive jobs
- The real reason everything keeps ending up in the “urgent” category
- Why delegation is usually delayed far too long by ADHD business owners
- What changes when low-value operational tasks are consistently removed from your plate
- Why “being good under pressure” quietly creates long-term business chaos

This episode is less about productivity tactics and more about the hidden operating system underneath ADHD work patterns.

If you’re an entrepreneur with ADHD who’s tired of being asked “Why don’t you just hire/make a system/delegate?”  We’ve gotchu! 

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4. Your Business Operations Built for Your ADHD Brain. Feel like you can never really delegate because you can’t explain how to do it? Struggling to hire someone who feels like a natural fit for your business? Let us handle it for you. We specialize in using our years of ADHD research and practical support to act as your fractional COO, handling the back-end operations in a way that feels light and keeps you focused. Learn more here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This is my day. This is what every day feels like. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_05 0:03

Okay, so this is why I wanted to have this conversation with you. Because hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of the ADHD Skills Lab, brought to you by Invisible Systems, our fractional integrator COO services for business owners who are making over $300,000 a year and they know that they need systems to get sorted. Today we're going to be jumping into something pretty fun. We're going to be reviewing the systems or lack of systems, and I don't think he minds me saying this, of Casey Neistat, because he posted a video about a month ago, and we've been wanting to do this for a while, called Navigating the Matrix, where he talks about how he gets things done and the struggles he has getting things done. Now, he has talked before about ADHD. And Casey Neistat, for those of you who don't know, is a YouTube video creator. He makes videos, he's made them for years. He's had some shows that have been on, I think it was HBO, and he became very famous on YouTube because he did one video a day for I think it was about two years. It was a long time, and that really propelled him forward, not only because he just did them, but because they were really exceptional little pieces of art.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

This is the crux of my day. The productivity matrix. The matrix is delineated by quadrants, with the y-axis representing productivity, productive, unproductive, and the x-axis representing how much I want to do the thing. I want to do it. I don't want to do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

Um, and this productivity matrix he's talking about, he doesn't reference it, but it looks exactly like the Eisenhower matrix, which is essentially the important, urgent, unimportant, and then the horrible, not urgent and not important, but I have to do it anyway tasks, which he references as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Remind me, I thought that matrix, the point of finding something that wasn't important and wasn't urgent, was that you actually just delete those tasks.

SPEAKER_05 2:05

It is, but God forbid anybody does that. You'll see there'll be some tasks in here that will be neither urgent nor important, and he will still have them on his list.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

The idea of the not important is like the kind of if they have to be done, they're sort of by definition important, I think.

SPEAKER_05 2:21

I don't think so. I haven't done the eyes and how matrix in it in a little minute because I use the prioritization filter, which is what we use, and you can always DM me prioritize on Instagram if you'd like your own copy. We love to give it away. It's very useful, it's been used for many years now.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

The Red Quadrant comprises things I want to do, but should absolutely not do. They're counterproductive. They're the opposite of work, the enemy of work. Yo, but they're fun.

SPEAKER_05 3:02

I like his version of this. I think it's it's very good being like productive versus unproductive, and I want to do it versus I don't want to do it. So you've got unproductive tasks that I want to do, basically. That's the red thing that he's describing now, the video games, etc.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

What goes into the unproductive tasks that I don't want to do?

SPEAKER_05 3:24

Oh, well, that's what I'm saying. That's unimportant, not urgent. Like I think it's very similar. Yeah. Unproductive tasks that I want to do. So he put for his red stuff things that are unproductive that he wants to do. Now I have clients who have really serious struggles with these things, and I've definitely struggled with them on my own as well. I I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you, I lock my phone. I have Freedom app on my phone that locks my phone. There was a time, I think about six months ago, where I set it up and it I couldn't get out of it. Like it would like not let me out because otherwise I would go on social media. So Twitter for him, video games, hanging with his friend, which I was like, I mean, I guess like I friends, the enemy of wins. I don't know if I would put but maybe you know he's maybe just Sam in particular. Sam something about Sam, yeah. Watching YouTube, which was ironic because he makes YouTube videos, and so yeah, those were all the things that he considered to be unproductive. What are your unproductive tasks, Robbie?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

I think video games is a pretty common one. It was 2.5 hours for men on average, 1.5 for women, different types of games.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

Yeah, we play the cozy games, which is true. I'm uh I'm uh I I feel like I don't play games as much because every time I to be completely honest with you, every time I start a video game, it reminds me about my work and I love my work, and that's the puzzle that I'm trying to solve right now, so I just go back to work.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

No, that can be true though. Sometimes you sit down at a game, you're like, this is I mean, that's what it's that's what it's simulating. It's simulating productivity where like the achievements are sort of a little bit easier, a little bit more concrete, a little bit more sort of it's just it's just it's what we wish work was in a lot of ways, like gaming. Yeah, like it that's that's the thing it's simulating. That's the that's the like the reward center that it's sim. I I mean I suppose it depending on the game, it stimulates different reward centers, but like one of the main ones I think is this feeling of like uh achievement, mastery, like productivity.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, let me know um in the comments what do you guys think of as a red task? Something that you want to do, but it's very unproductive. I think social media. Do you get stuck on social media, Robbie? You're a YouTube shorts guy.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

More YouTube. Shorts is like when you're on your phone and the boys won't go to sleep. No, social media has always felt like occasionally because I use Messenger, like I'll have to go, like for some reason I'll end up on Facebook. Like maybe someone shares something, and you start scrolling and you go like, ooh, and you sort of immediately catch yourself. You're like, ah, this is there's something about Facebook that's always felt off to me. It's always felt, I don't know, it's never been alluring. I can see it like the the doom scrolling starts, but there's like this feeling of just like, oh, like this is I don't know, there's almost like an ick to it. I don't actually know why.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Juxtaposing red is green. These are the things I want to do and absolutely should do, but for some reason, I avoid doing. I enjoy these things, yet I avoid these things.

SPEAKER_05 6:24

Okay, I want to make a note. He has green as things that he wants to do and absolutely should do. So things he wants to do and absolutely should do, but for some reason avoids doing, and he puts making YouTube videos and editing YouTube videos in that quadrant because that's what he is. He's a, you know, at least in this capacity, what he mentions here is he makes YouTube videos for a living. But this is something that I see a lot with my clients. One of the biggest things I see, which I always want to share with other people, is people will feel like their thing that they're really good at isn't actually something that they should do because they put it off. So they might be an amazing artist or they might be an amazing musician, but because they don't play or make as much as they they see their neurotypical people that they know doing, they feel like they should pick something else. And in reality, there's always friction to starting something that you want to do, and that doesn't mean that you're not good at it or you shouldn't do it, it's just part of having ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So you're saying they uh are interpreting uh that resistance uh as a sign they shouldn't be doing it as a career career choice, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 7:44

They're sort of waiting for the thing that feels easy, and sometimes it can kind of put people off. They're like, Oh, well, if I really wanted to do this, you know, I've had people so many musicians productivity should be like effortless, though.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Is that like people, yeah. Like it should just be pure pleasure the whole time.

SPEAKER_05 8:03

I think especially with the creative work, you know. So if somebody if somebody is like making this happens a lot when I'm working with with musicians, composers, artists, there's a sense that I should be able to just sit down, I should want to do it all the time, especially because sometimes you will have a hyper focus and you'll want to do it all the time, but but the majority of the time, yeah, it's like you have to block out time for it and and sort of trick yourself into sitting down and doing it and starting, and then once you're in, it's good. But I I mean, for example, and she won't mind me saying this because we had her on the podcast, but Katie is a playwright, still very successful in Australia. And we worked for a while on helping her get started on writing because she was putting it off, and she was working at the time doing something else as well, and there was a sense of like, should I really pursue this full time if I'm distracted and procrastinating so often on the steps that I need to do, the writing of the play. I am a playwright, I write plays, and I'm not writing plays. And we've you know helped her through a combination of like doing yoga and and focusing and blocking the right kind of time and a whole bunch of other ADHD stuff to start, and now she is, you know, a full-time playwright, and that's what she was able to do and get grants for. But there was a bit of that, there was a bit of that. Why am I not doing the thing that I need to be doing?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

The analogy that comes to mind for me with these two is healthy food versus junk food, because I find that with healthy food a lot of the time. Well meant like good, like home cooked meals are really good when you're eating them. But if you're making that decision about what should I eat today, what should I eat next, I'm feeling I'm feeling nibbly pigs, like what am I what am I gonna go get? The junk food's way more tempting, even though you're gonna feel like often you'll be eating the healthy food and you'll be like, Oh, this is so good. Like, I should really do this more often. It is really good.

SPEAKER_05 9:55

I don't know why I'm often say that to me. You're like, Oh, but I should do this more often.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

I know this is better for me, and I actually enjoy it once I'm doing it, but like it doesn't draw you that same way, like the same way that like just like salty, sugary, like oily food is like calling to you when you're hungry in a way that the healthy food isn't like and I think kind of in line with what you were saying, removing the obstacles, making it the easier thing to do. So, like not having some food in the house and having healthy food already made, like prepped in the fruit, massively increases your chance of actually just going and doing that thing.

SPEAKER_05 10:24

Yeah, and that's the thing is like in the same way as you don't go, well, I guess healthy food is not for me because I have resistance to it. Don't do that with your creative endeavors.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Take my diet out of just junk food because that's what calls to me the most. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

It's the same idea, but we can get confused about that. Okay, so that's the green quadrant for those of you who are watching.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

That's kind of fascinating because I I feel like normally people are trading off between pursuing their dreams in kind of the green green quadrant versus like something that's a little bit more boring but a little a little bit more safe. It's it's strange to hear people sort of going like, even with playwriting, something that's creative, but is this really for me like are they are they saying I should be doing like it if this was the thing I was supposed to do, it should be like even less effort, like even more effortless, or exactly.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

So people will often get to the street. Yeah, but people have a feeling of like of I've worked so hard to get here, or other people have sacrificed. So in the examples, you know, people are working so that I can pursue this goal, so that I can reach this, you know, etc. And I'm still procrastinating.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Right. You've got like maybe a partner who's supporting you, or exactly.

SPEAKER_05 11:36

I've got a partner who's supporting me, or I've got a student loan that I'm accruing to get this.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

My partner's not going to appreciate coming back and be like, okay, I know I was working on screenwriting. I think what I need to do is something even more red-coded.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

Well, it's it's you know, it's yeah, it is. I mean, I mean, but you I imagine you procrastinate sometimes on working on these podcast episodes, even though you really like doing it.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, for sure. But then I would never I don't know. Like, I would love to design and make a game. I'm also under no illusions that that will not be a green thing, not a red thing. Like that's not gonna be the same as playing a game, like having to think about all the design decisions, actually execute on them, like make but you have that knowledge because of obviously what we do in the conversations we've had. Yeah, the idea that anything creative isn't gonna be hard.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Things I don't want to do and don't need to do, but will do to avoid doing the things I should do. This is the apex of procrastination maxi. These things don't need to be done, but while doing them, I can tell myself I'm doing something that needs to be done. When in reality, I'm just avoiding the thing I should be doing.

SPEAKER_05 12:46

Okay, so now we come to the yellow, which is things I don't want to do and don't need to do, and will avoid doing, which is like I said, your unimportant and unurgent tasks. This is the unimportant, unurgent. So he is working his way through Eisenhower Matrix. Don't clean the back room's cupboard. That's the example. Don't update the website. You think you need to do it, but trust me.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

You're lying to yourself.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

You do sometimes you do, but nine times out of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

It's like the people who sometimes you need to clean, but like, but if you're cleaning during exam break, it's because you don't want to study.

SPEAKER_05 13:22

Yeah, yeah. Dishures never look so good as when you're studying for an exam. I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

It is I remember it is so weird how good and productive you feel doing all the things that aren't the most important thing you need to do.

SPEAKER_05 13:35

And then you make a list, if you're me, when you were studying, of all the things you're gonna do as soon as you finish studying, and you never do any of them.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

There is that feeling. I remember that like right after you finish exams, you think you're gonna go off and do those things, but like the I don't know, the dopamine's like sucked out of them. Yeah, it's a weird space. Those first days after exams, you're sort of like it's the most like visceral, like exams are such a like we have deadlines on the business, things like it, but nothing's quite the same as like those three weeks of exam leave.

SPEAKER_05 14:02

Like those still the only thing I can compare it to is sometimes if I have a podcast and I need to make sure I really prep for a guest and have a good podcast, or if I have a client session or a sales call that I'm really prepping for, then that has an effect, but nothing like an exam. So we have the reason we're watching this is we actually have some advice for Casey Nice that I it's really weird saying that, but like we have some advice based on this, so we're gonna keep watching.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

I catch myself doing things that I'm not supposed to do. Some people are motivated by like success and being like the feeling of getting it done and feeling like they accomplished something, and that's awesome, and I did it. Mine was like, I'm gonna finish this paper because if I don't, I'm gonna fail.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

So Candace is motivated by a fear of failure.

SPEAKER_05 14:54

Are you motivated by a fear of failure or looking for success? To be clear, Casey Neistat was just talking about his wife being motivated by a fear of failure to do things, and he doesn't have that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Fear of failing or fear of failing to meet my like standards. I don't know, it's sort of a weird distinction. So you're you like she's saying you're not motivated by the the sort of feeling of completing the task. You're motivated by the feeling you're worried about when you touch like when you fall short, which is kind of the ADHD perfectionism thing we were talking about last week. She is describing a very like it could be something for everyone.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Like everyone struggles with different sides of perfectionism.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah. Well, and a lot of things are kind of a spectrum. Like we're we're not talking about like a single thing here, we're talking about like a collection of genes that make up ADHD. So again, there'll be there'll be crossover, there'll be it's not all clear-cut and boundaries in black and white. But I think she is describing that ADHD perfectionism finding from the paper last week. Yes, she is. Where there's sort of this just this feeling of a disproportionate, sort of acute self-criticism for falling short of your standards, even if your standards aren't like perfectionistically high. They're just this is the standard that I hold myself to, and it, you know, I'm really disappointed in myself when I don't reach it. And you're saying, is that the primary motivation? Probably, because it's gonna beat out the other things that would be more fun to do. Yeah. And that's kind of how it does it.

SPEAKER_05 16:14

I would say I am more motivated by the positive than the negative most of the time. Like when I'm working on launching something and I'm working into the night, you know, on it, usually it's that feeling of yeah, it's gonna be so cool and people are gonna like it, mixed a little bit. And I think we talked about this in the perfectionism conversation with this idea of, and if I do it now, then I don't have to wake up tomorrow and wonder if it's good and try and make it better. Do it all in one big go.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Depending on the work, like obviously coming up with like a new idea for the episode, I'm super just excited to be doing it, you know, if there's something. And there's probably a little bit of a fear of like, if I don't write this down now, or if I don't explore it now, or if I don't sort of, I might as well start it now. I mean, I think half the time that's because it's not what I should be doing. So, like a lot of the time I should be working on the one that I'm on like version four of. Yeah, you have so many sick of it, and I don't really want to read it again. So there's a little bit of that procrastination happening. You sort of I often feel like there's almost a shell game to like productivity where you you need to have something you should be doing so that you can have the motivation to do all the other things that you also need to do, but they're not quite as urgent as that one thing. But yeah, kind of the idea that like it'd be good to just always have an exam you're supposed to be doing in the background.

SPEAKER_05 17:28

It is a stressful way to live, though. I I was saying to my community the other day that with ADHD we can sort of live our lives as if we always have an exam next week, and that is not good for you.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

I don't know, that like not doing the exam and doing something else that's sort of half half as important, that's a pretty good feeling.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Like it's mostly the things that I don't want to do, but I have to do, and then a lot of things that I don't necessarily have to do, but I I do, and then a good percentage of things that I don't need to do, but I like to do, and then some itty bitty percentage of the things that I like to do, but I want to do. This is my day. This is what every every day feels like. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_05 18:14

Okay, so this is why I wanted to have this conversation with you. Because Casey Neistat describes himself as spending most of his day, like over 50% of his day, doing things that he has to do, but he doesn't want to do the productive work calls, the emails. If you have an EA, you don't have to do this. And in fact, one of the biggest things that we do is we help people find an EA, we onboard them, we help them take tasks off your plate because this is such a drain on the ADHD entrepreneur, which he describes right in this video.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, this was definitely the point where we were both just like he needs someone to help him.

SPEAKER_05 19:01

Yeah, why don't you have somebody else managing those emails? And there'll be reasons, there's always reasons, and I will say to that, I know, I understand the reasons, but you still need to figure out how to do this.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

There'll be things that are hard to delegate and get them done right. Like that's you know, again, last week we what we were talking about.

SPEAKER_05 19:20

But this is the thing as well, like I would be so curious to know because I know a reasonable amount about Casey Neistat, and I know that one of the things he did back in the day was he hired someone to edit his YouTube videos, and it didn't really work out, and so he ended up doing his own YouTube videos. That makes sense. The YouTube stuff is his zone of genius, it makes sense he doesn't want to give that away. But I would have a really hard time believing that his work emails and his work calls are in the same level of stuff no one can do but Casey.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

The editing is part of what makes his video so special. It's like, yeah, it's that's part of his yeah, what you said. But I thank you.

SPEAKER_05 19:56

But but I do feel like this is really normal, a really normal trajectory for an entrepreneur. And in some ways, Casey is is really generously sharing this with us because he's kind of showcasing this really common struggle where people go, okay, I need to hand things off. Well, I want to make videos or I want to make cakes or I want to make bank statements or spreadsheets or whatever it is you make and do for a living. So I need to go and find somebody else who can do this for me, and then that will be that will be my thing. But in reality, what you actually want to go ahead and do is you you want to keep that stuff for yourself and hand off all of the blue stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah, keep keep the red and the green, hand off all the yellow and the blue, hand off the yellow as well, because if you've got a cleaner, then your excuse to like this needs to be cleaned really stops being able to hold muster.

SPEAKER_05 20:46

We want you to live in a world where you spend all of your time doing things you want to do that are unproductive, like spending time with your family, playing games, and things that you want to do that are productive, and we want to handle it.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

We talked about this last time, by the way. I think spending time with your family isn't the green. It's oh, isn't it? It's I think you should think of that as a form of productivity, yeah. Fair enough, yeah. It's it's a like not in the strict will it make money.

SPEAKER_05 21:15

But yeah, okay. So so we but we want you to live in that a green red space. A lot of people don't realize that if you do it properly, and if you have systems and processes to help you do this, you can spend most of your time doing things you want to do. And look, I get it. I've spent a lot of my time. I remember early on when I had like my first job, and I didn't want to do that job, and I would dread that job all week, and my favorite day was the day after I'd done that job, and then I would have to, you know. So I know what it's like to do things you don't want to do and have to do them. But when you're an entrepreneur, you get to spend a lot of time doing things you want to do if you know how to delegate.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, this complaint would make a lot more sense for sort of a normal person starting their first job for case. Who's like kind of top of his profession, I guess would be a way of putting it. Definitely someone who you would expect has the cash flow spare for people to do things that are in the yellow and the blue.

SPEAKER_05 22:11

But I think that's the thing is I know so many people who have the cash flow or would have the cash flow if they could utilize their group time working on things they want to do that are productive to make that cash flow, who still don't do it because there's a feeling of like, well, I I don't want to because it's too complicated to figure out how to hand things off. I don't want to hand things off because I have a feeling about it, all of those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah, it's like the the money left on the table from not making more videos, from like Casey not making more videos, would have to be able to pay for a lot of delegation of yellow and blue tasks here.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

Yeah, and I don't know who's been talking to him in his life. Maybe someone else had watched this video and had the same conversation as we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

So he has been making more videos.

SPEAKER_05 22:53

He has been making more videos. He started doing like almost like a daily video, and it's great to see, and I love it, and I'm super excited for him, and I hope he's been able to delegate some tasks.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

So that's part of that's that's most of it.

SPEAKER_05 23:19

Have you ever worked super late? Do you find that it's better?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, so I just trying to separate it from staying up super late to avoid all those things, but not to work, especially sort of in my younger years, like those early hours in the morning, there's no chance of getting. I think like that was almost an introverted thing. Like it's the best time to sort of recharge introverted batteries is like between midnight and 2 a.m. Not the best in terms of sleep cycle, and especially not when you add kids to the mix, but well, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

He's like, I'm a dad. I can't I can't stay up really late anymore to get things done.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I'm just trying to think like why. So I imagine I think he's about to explain it actually. Like you you you're there over time. This is I could go home at any moment. So there's like this there's sort of this urgency, and this like, I if I can just get this done, I can go home and do the thing I want to do anyway. Like, but I have to get this last thing done. So now it's urgent. I might I could have done it, you know, three hours ago during the actual workday, but I didn't because the urgency wasn't there. Now I'm late. The minute I finish, I can go home. So you got this like very quick reward that like if you finish in the middle of the day, you would have just given yourself another task.

SPEAKER_05 24:22

I have a lot of clients who have that feeling, who have that sense of reward. And I will say I've also had a lot of success helping clients become morning people who used to be evening people for the same reason. So getting up really early. I I'm not a I'm not a late night person, but I have in the past been when you're the kind of person who needs the more the evenings to get work done because you've got that urgency. Sometimes you can become an early morning person for the same reason. So getting up at 4 a.m. and getting started. Like I was never an evening person, but especially when I was writing, I would wake up super early, and the first thing I would do would just be working on my writing. I was just like, wake up, go to my office, start writing. That's the first thing I would do. And that was quite successful.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah, actually, I'm I've done the exact same thing. I'm I'm, you know, when I wake up, if I wake up at 6 30 or if we've already gotten up for some reason and the boys are still asleep, that's when I'm going to make the most of some uninterrupted time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:17

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Problem I have with the Eisenhower matrix is, and I think it's a common problem, is everything feels like it should just go into urgent. It's like, oh, I should oh well, I should do this today. Oh, well, I should do this today. And so you just end up with a completely bloated, urgent, 24 hours, urgent, important list. Nothing really, very, very seldom do you actually go, I guess this isn't urgent. It is important, but it's not urgent, or like this is this is what urgent, but it's not important. You and you're definitely never going, this is an unimportant, unurgent thing. So I should put it into a box where I should then delete it, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 25:50

Most people put things in urgent because they don't want to forget them. The conversation I always have is like, well, I have to put it in urgent because I'll forget it, which is why we have uncategorized, which is what you're mentioning here.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

And I've set it up on my Notion so that it's the only place I can put something where I can actually fill out all the details. So everything else just has the title of the task. It doesn't have an option for me to sort of easily put in extra details or a URL or a due date or even to mark but yeah, all the columns are hidden for every other place. So uncategorized is sort of forcing you to come down there and put things in there first, and then have a good think about okay, is this like actually 24 hours, or is it something I should be delegating, or is it something that I should be doing next week?

SPEAKER_05 26:30

Because of working memory, I always try and tell people like writing a task down to do and figuring out if it's important or urgent are two different tasks. There's the right remembering the task and then there's the filtering the task. So if you are just remembering the task, awesome. You did a good job. Don't try and filter it at the same time because you're just gonna put it in the most urgent, which is what you ended up doing.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Like time blind optimism, everything like yeah, you're like, I'll solve it all today. Magical thinking, just like it's all gonna get done today. This is definitely a accomplishable set of tasks for today. Oh, and one more thing I have to remember too.

SPEAKER_05 27:03

Like, it is interesting that idea that busy work can feel like procrastinating sometimes. I definitely find that that's a constant negotiation that I have between am I doing this because I have to do it or am I doing it because I I'm I don't need to do it? And especially which he doesn't mention at all, when you're having the delegation conversation, then you've got the constant negotiation between should I be doing this or should this be delegated to somebody else?

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I mean, the end point of the delegation conversation is could someone else be doing it, someone else should be doing it.

SPEAKER_05 27:35

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. That's what I've discovered. I've been like, if I'm thinking, should somebody else be doing this, the answer is yes, and they need it needs to be given to my EA now.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

You know, like trying to offload the editing, I can see why that would have been one of his first moves.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

It's a common first move is to offload a piece of the delivery.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

But that seems like I imagine it's a huge chunk of the work, and it's probably the less enjoyable than actually making and filming. But I also it seems like the I don't want to say that would be impossible to delegate.

SPEAKER_05 28:06

I'm but close to a lot of people have said, a lot of YouTubers have said that editing was very, very difficult to delegate. Um what I found really interesting was thinking if he'd said editing takes up most of my time and I don't have time to make the videos because I'm always editing the videos, then I would have been like, okay, this is a complicated task. But it's because he said most of the time he spends writing emails, work calls, etc., that I'm like, oh, okay, well, that is very delegatable.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, right. I think I think you're right. I think it's almost not worth given his breakdown of where the time's going, it doesn't seem like the editing is the like thing that's consuming all of his time. If it was, I would definitely think there's probably parts of the editing that are kind of routine, kind of like that you can imagine delegating, taking all the raw content, chopping it into the piece, chopping it into pieces, labeling them correctly, and then like he could probably streamline his editing process. But again, when that's not the problem he's trying to solve.

SPEAKER_05 28:57

Yeah, I have worked with people before in like photography and editing who had this similar struggle. And also I've heard him talking about it, and it's very, very difficult to edit. So I want to take off the plate entirely that he will ever delegate making or editing YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Well, I think like the final edit is part of what makes them Casey's videos.

SPEAKER_05 29:15

I can't imagine they have such a fingerprint on them. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Trying to like it feels like Casey trying to delegate editing would almost be like delegating the making of them as well.

SPEAKER_05 29:23

The other part that you said there was and that he's talking about is Well, he was talking about the idea that the green tasks feel like they are building to something. Like, for example, you one of your green tasks is making these podcast episodes, and then we have a podcast episode, and then it exists, and we get to share it with you guys, and and we also get to have it as well for our own research accumulation.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Content production. The other thing that he was saying though was the sort of boundaries between the red and the yellow and the blue, particularly the red and the blue, he was saying, like busy work merging into procrastination. I think red sort of clear procrastination. Yellow is sort of hidden procrastination, and then blue is kind of busy work, which I guess means it definitely needs to be done, but like I'm prioritizing it over. You had a whole thing around ignoring everything that wasn't directly.

SPEAKER_05 30:17

Yeah, so my perspective on this, based on research, based on what I've done with clients, is when you are starting a business, your job is to do the tasks that are super, super urgent, as in if you don't do them today, something really bad will happen. You would do them even if you were in a waiting room, you'd do them even in an emergency, like paying a bill, for example, so that your lights don't get shut off, things like that. And you ignore everything else that isn't the one or maybe two things that if you did them, they would have a material impact on you growing your business.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

And I think the idea behind that, right, was the green things are what brings in cash flow. The cash flow is going to unlock the ability to delegate. So just focus on the green, let everything else go.

SPEAKER_05 31:09

Yep. Unless it's really a kitchen fire that will burn down right now, let everything else go. So then you can hire somebody, and you know, this is actually one of the reasons we have become fractional integrators for business owners with ADHD, because then they're like, Okay, but how? How would I do that? So we do that now. But then that allows you to have that person, and then that person does all the tasks that were on your task list. The interesting thing about Casey Neistad is he is not working with that information, so he just has to figure out how to do all of it, it feels like. Yeah, without knowing exactly how much support he has on all of it, it does sound like well if he if he has the support, he's not bringing it up, and like maybe he has an EA. I have no idea. Tell us, Casey, do you have an executive assistant?

SPEAKER_01 31:56

You would think that would feature in the films more. And you're sort of looking through this all and you're going, okay, obviously you shouldn't be doing anything in the red thing. And also kind of obviously you probably still will, because a little bit of dopamine, even just to like get started on something.

SPEAKER_05 32:08

I think you should do things that you want to do that are unproductive. I actually think you should spend as much time as you can doing that stuff outside of the stuff that you want to do that are productive.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Yeah, I guess the thing your ideal balance is you're doing the red to recharge and then you're doing the green for as long as you can.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

You're bing-bonging between the two. You're going red, green, red, green, and you're doing a minimal yellow and blue. The only thing you're doing in the yellow is.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

You're also bribing your way into the green. So you're sort of like putting some candy on the desk and being like, you don't get to eat those unless you're sitting down to do a green task. But you do get to eat them at the start of the task. You don't have to wait till the end.

SPEAKER_05 32:40

That exactly. You use them to kind of kickstart you back into the green. So we've got this really nice combo.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Yeah, that and you're sort of dopamine stacking as much as possible in those green tasks. So music in the background, yada yada yada.

SPEAKER_05 32:52

Exactly. So my my uh ideal world is where red tasks and green tasks blow together. So, for example, one of the things I love to do is go to a coffee shop, have a lovely coffee, have a nice lunch, have a chat with you, and so and and go for a walk. And I love to do all of those things. And I also like talking with you, but I know that I need to make YouTube videos, I need I need to make content, I need to read research. So I do it with you. And often I work on it in a coffee shop. I'm blending those two things together as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah, so obviously the point the the that advice is stop cleaning the studio, stop rewiring the electronics, stop organizing your gear, stop checking your mailbox, even for a brief period when you're starting the business, not all the time and always. And like stop responding to every work email, stop um answering all your work calls, and just make the videos and edit the videos and put them out and get the revenue and then hire someone to help you with all those tasks.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

Pretty much, pretty much, and if you don't know how to do that, then talk to us because we know how to do that, because that's the next bit people don't know how to do.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Yeah, well, that's the part that can be really tricky is you hire the wrong person, the delegation doesn't work, you know you're facing the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yeah, and that's so brutal. This is all unavoidable. This is what's necessary in order to do this. You have to navigate the storm before the ship can be brought in.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

He says right at the end, it's like you have to navigate the storm of all the other stuff you have to do before the ship can be brought in, and you do the thing that you have to do. And to that I say, no. No, you do you don't have to you have to navigate the storm of figuring out how to delegate that stuff, but there is 100% of world if you look at you know all those people who work with their assistants and they just have a have a meeting with them every day. There is 100% of world where you just get to make videos.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yeah, if you look at high-performing CEOs, they're not navigating all of that yellow and blue stuff.

SPEAKER_05 34:54

They're not, they really, really aren't. Yeah. And that's why we wanted to make this episode reacting to that video. So if you want to have a look at the video, let us know what you thought.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

I think there's probably someone who would love the opportunity to be the person who keeps Casey Neistat's office and studio organized, clean, gets given the crazy next task for the next day of like, wouldn't it be cool if this was the way this was set up? And actually, I've always wanted to do like I've been meaning to do this, but it's not a priority. Yeah, there'd be someone who would love that job. There's probably the income stream to cover it, and then he can just live in that red-green zone. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely administratively minded people who are going to love taking care of all of his work calls, organizing all his emails, executing on all those blue tasks as well.

SPEAKER_05 35:43

Yeah, 100%, 100%. And so this is why we wanted to say this was like, hey, yes, this is a great video. It explains exactly the struggles of ADHD. It does not explain the solution of ADHD. You can hire somebody, you can get those blue and yellow tasks off your plate as much as possible. And obviously, there's there's financial difficulties, but that's one of the things we talk about. It's like how, as your business owner, how to get to a place where you have that ability to do that. And often for so many people, they feel like they have to be up here before they get there, and then they'll talk to me and they'll be like, oh no, I can do that tomorrow because it is it is doable, it is achievable. And so yeah, I was just really passionate about this because I wanted people to know that it isn't just about there, the storm doesn't have to be a storm. You can just do things you enjoy and then do more things that you enjoy, and that can be a life. And it's if you're lucky enough to have that, then it's amazing. But it's not just luck, it's also strategy and skill and delegating and and all the things that we've talked about.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

You don't have to live in the storm.

SPEAKER_05 36:46

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.