There is so much information available for staying organized, prioritizing, and being productive as a business owner. But what if you are not neurotypical and the standard approach does not actually jive with how your brain operates?
Today I am joined by Justine Clay (she/her) who is a business coach and ADHD life coach to answer a listener question on how to get stuff done as someone with ADHD who has realized their old ways of operating were unhelpful, but doesn't have a new alternative that works.
Connect with Justine
There is so much information available for staying organized, prioritizing, and being productive as a business owner. But what if you are not neurotypical and the standard approach does not actually jive with how your brain operates?
Today I am joined by Justine Clay (she/her) who is a business coach and ADHD life coach to answer a listener question on how to get stuff done as someone with ADHD who has realized their old ways of operating were unhelpful, but doesn't have a new alternative that works.
Connect with Justine
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Make your Business Work For You. Today is a Q&A episode. I pulled in my friend, Justine Clay. Justine is a business coach and also a certified ADHD life coach and speaker, and this was perfect for today because we have a question about running a business with competing priorities, like family stuff, while navigating ADHD. So we are going to have a great conversation about this question today. A couple of reminders before we jump in. First of all, you can head to joinfruition. com to submit questions of your own for future episodes of the podcast, and you can also join us in the community there and come to our bi-weekly co-workings, our once monthly networking for people who hate networking and our expert contributor workshops. The other is, if you have been finding value in this show, I would love it so much if you have not already for you to head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. Helps us out quite a bit. And if you could also share the episodes with folks who you know need to hear it, that is a huge help as well. We're jumping right into the Q&A today. I hope that you enjoy.
Brooke Monaghan:I have been running my coaching business for the past five years on a part-time basis when my kids are in school. It's been a slow burner, but that's been okay, as I managed lots of unpaid caring work too. This is where me being dyslexic comes in, because now I'm everybody listening. I'm starting to get self-conscious about the fact that I'm reading this out loud. It's okay, we're gonna get through it. This past year, though, I have really struggled with focus, attention, prioritization. I just don't know what the fuck to do when I sit at my desk. How do people do this? How do they know what to do?
Brooke Monaghan:Not coincidentally, I was diagnosed with ADHD inattentive over a year ago. I'm in my 40s. I spent a good few months in denial about this diagnosis, being angry about it and really dealing with my own internal ableism. However, in recent months, I have been more accepting of my needs and limitations. Good news, you would think. However, in doing that and being kinder to myself, surprise, surprise,
Brooke Monaghan:my old ways of powering through and forcing myself to act neurotypical are not working. In theory, this is good news, right, but the day-to-day practical reality of this is that I no longer have a way, a structure, to do my work. Yes, the old way was harmful, but at least shit got done. Now I'm just floating around and feeling like shit. So my question is really about when someone has executive functioning limitations, time and date blindness and inability to prioritize, how can I support myself in my business so that the work that I am passionate about and have great clarity around my vision, my process, my offerings thanks to Brooke but I am so limited in the accountability, delivery and prioritization of tasks. It's so exhausting. I imagine the solution lies in using tools, systems and calendars to support me and I am so resistant to this, like a child about to have a tantrum. Thank you for reading this. It's so long. Feel free to amend it. We are not amending it. We are here for the whole question. Justine, thoughts.
Justine Clay:OK thoughts. So what I love about my ADHD clients is you always get context right and lots of it, and I love it because it's helpful and people are always worried, like you know. Is she tracking? Is she not tracking? I'm tracking, so I think it might be beneficial for me to just maybe articulate what I heard in there. Maybe just tease some of the salient points out and we can maybe just tackle them from there. How does that sound? [Brooke Monaghan] Love it [Justine Clay] All right, all right. So first thing I hear this is a woman in her 40s, she is a mother, she is an entrepreneur, she was recently diagnosed with ADHD inattentive presentation and she's been running her coaching business for five years, full time. So this is just even when I'm thinking about, I'm just connecting with who the person is and my first thought is that's a lot of things going on, right, so no wonder it's exhausting, no wonder she's exhausted. I want to just call that out, that this is a lot of things, right.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, like maybe you're not broken because you're exhausted and maybe this is an exhausting situation.
Justine Clay:Exactly, exactly. This is a very natural response to a lot of stuff happening right. And then what I really hear as well and this is so common and I hear it a lot, especially with we have adults, but I would even specify women, who get an adult diagnosis there's such a lot of emotional stuff that goes along with that, because, as we're now learning, adhd is not a boys thing, it's an equally boys and girls thing. It's just that girls present differently. Patrons means that we mask and we cover up and we are like the good one, so we struggle sort of behind the scenes, but meanwhile we are still struggling right and so with all of this, but not letting anyone see it, whereas it's fine for the little boys to be bouncing off the walls and being hyperactive or whatever it is, and that's okay, right.
Justine Clay:So one of the things I've already heard and I should just clarify I'm neurotypical, but I am the parent of a child with ADHD, I'm the wife of a man with ADHD and I'm a coach for folks with ADHD. So one of the things I've observed from all of those people in my worlds that receive an adult diagnosis, especially women, is there's a lot of grief that goes along with it. That needs to be processed. And, as anyone who knows even nothing about grief, we all know that it's not a linear process. We all know that it's really complex and really nuanced and can kind of really go on, you know, for a long time. There's layers and layers and layers of it.
Justine Clay:So just the fact that she only got this diagnosis a year ago is this is still fresh. [Brooke Monaghan] Yeah, yeah. [Justine Clay] And it's going to be a lot of those things. And now let's put on top of it the emotional work that comes from, as she said, recognizing her own internal ableism. I experienced that as the mother of a child with ADHD. It's not cute, right? That's not. That's confronting and deep work. So there's a lot of things going on there. So I just want to like oh, no, that as well.
Justine Clay:Yeah, this stuff takes time and space and a whole ton of compassion and all the preparations on how to actually doing the work.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, and I just want to note for the sake of anybody listening, it sounds like you're saying anyone who, basically anyone who is like assigned female, right, like anyone who went through being assigned female and then having those expectations put on you. It's a unique experience because of what we know about well. I mean, I feel like I know an awful lot about this from being finding out that I was dyslexic very late in life. But similar thing, it's like there's just very people who are assigned female are expected to handle it in a much different way and the expectations on that group of people are very different.
Justine Clay:Absolutely and yeah, it's a good sort of reflection of what I was trying to communicate, so absolutely. And the other thing that she mentioned in there that I also I have two kids myself. I've got an eight year old and a 12 year old is that, no matter how much you have boundaries and a great partner and all of these things, the fact of the matter is that the majority of the labor at home does fall on the woman. No matter how hard you try to get out from underneath it, there's still. Even if you manage to carve out more equity in the division of labor at home, it's still a Herculean effort. You're still fighting against societal norms. You're fighting against your parents and teachers and the teacher emailing me if there's something going with the kid or not, emailing my husband, right, well, it's like death by a thousand cuts. So just also just to acknowledge that she's got all of these things that she's juggling while dealing with the, not just the diagnosis but then the awareness around the limitations that come with a brainwiring that works that way in a neurotypical world, I should say [Brooke Monaghan] Right. [Justine Clay] I'm not saying that brainwiring is limited, it's just with the working in a neurotypical world, there's some some gaps, right, what I hear her struggles are focus, attention and prioritization. That's what I hear her saying, primarily in tests, in multiple ways.
Justine Clay:And then there's a question I'd love to ask later which is? Or I could ask it now which is? And she says I imagine the solution lies in using tools, systems, calendars to support me. And I'm so resistant to this. And she even talks about being like a child, about to throw a tantrum. I'm so curious about that. I wish she was here so I could say what's that about? [Brooke Monaghan] Yeah. [Justine Clay] I've got thoughts, I've got some ideas, but you know, if we can't prioritize, focus, struggle with time blindness and all of these things, yes, it's hard to get shit done, and she's evolved beyond being like an asshole to herself. I hope it's okay that I just said that on your podcast.
Brooke Monaghan:Yes, we are here for all of the swearing.
Justine Clay:Okay, All right, Like she was just like being a mean neurotypical asshole to herself and now she's like no, that doesn't serve me. But what I'm hearing is that there's a gap between the old way that she knew, because that's all that's been modeled her whole life probably, but didn't work for her, and she hasn't yet found what the new thing is. And it makes sense right that if the diagnosis was only a year ago, it makes perfect sense that all of the things that have worked, even in a really imperfect way, for 40 years, you've got to now come up with a new playbook. So for me it makes all the sense in the world that she's exhausted, that she feels lost, that she doesn't know what will work for her, because that's a completely reasonable response to what she's got going on.
Brooke Monaghan:As I was hearing you talk about the. You know what's that about, with feeling like a kid, about to throw a tantrum. It reminds me of my own experience, not with ADHD, but again with dyslexia, and this person was trying to sell me a book or something like that, and I think that I just we were like walking. I was walking down the street and this person was like, oh you, should, you know, read my book or something, and gave me like something and I didn't know, somewhere along the line, something came up. He was being very pushy and I think that at some point I was just like I'm dyslexic, talk to that person. I pointed to the other person that was with me like talk to them, they love reading. Like don't talk. And he was like well, dyslexic people can read.
Brooke Monaghan:I don't know if you're aware of that, and I wanted to be like if one more person tells me that I can learn how to do this, well, because it was like my whole upbringing as a kid, right, was like that. Well, first of all, I mean no one, no one ever acknowledged that I even had a reading issue. But the being told like, just do this. I now have very strong reactions to it now, later in life. And so I do kind of wonder if, like there, if some of what might be happening and you had said being a neurotypical asshole to yourself, some of what might be happening here is like yeah, of course you would think that it has to do with these things, because probably somewhere along the line people were like well, just use the tools that are available. That's what I do and it works fine. And of course your reaction is going to be fuck off and leave me alone, because how long have you been told that, and now you're gaslighting yourself.
Justine Clay:Exactly, exactly, and I think that what you're talking about there is something that, like, people just say, well, why don't you just use a calendar? Well, no shit Sherlock. I didn't think that, right, of course I tried using a calendar. Of course I've tried writing a list, right, or you just need to get up an hour earlier, or there's such like oblivion or obliviousness in all of this advice coming from people who don't know what it feels like to be writing with the equipment that you have, and every person is unique, right? So there was a saying in my coaching course. It was you've met one person with ADHD. You've met one person with ADHD, right? It's sure it's the same with dyslexia and anything else.
Brooke Monaghan:It presents very differently and also with anything it's like really what we're talking about is just that you check a certain number of criteria and we've decided that you check enough of the criteria to be grouped into this one thing. But, like these, like harsh categories don't really exist in the way that, like with any kind of I mean most of what we're diagnosing with people with that has to do with anything mental. So, yeah, it presents totally differently, and so what works for you is going to be probably something that you have to figure out for yourself, and I can imagine that's incredibly frustrating.
Justine Clay:Absolutely, and I think that what you said about your experience I think it also just reminds me, and why I was curious was I wonder if she knows why. [Brooke Monaghan] Oh, yeah, yeah. [Justine Clay] Because I think that's important, right, I think it's important for us to like, as you say, I know why I reject someone telling me what to do because I've always been told what to do by people who had no damn idea what was the hell was going on or what they were talking about. Right, if we know that, we can just be like.
Justine Clay:It's not that the tools themselves are bad. I'm just resistant to the people who keep telling me to use the thing and the way that they use it. That's my, my beef, right? But I think that's interesting because there are some things that you can pretty much disregard as like common wisdom, and the first is that you need to be a morning person. So many with ADHD have a late rhythm, so their best hours may be between midnight and four am. So first things first is you don't have to be a morning person.
Brooke Monaghan:Wait, so you're saying that there is a correlation between ADHD and having a late rhythm? [Justine Clay] Yes. [Brooke Monaghan] Interesting, I did not know that.
Justine Clay:Yes, like that, my husband being one of them. When I met him, he would go to bed at like one, two every morning and like a, you know, like me, like a neurotypical person sometimes, but he fights it every night it's a fight, because when the day quiets down, if you think about you know, and you know I've heard people describe this way and it's overly simplistic, but, like you know, having a billion browsers open in your brain, like that's kind of how it feels, right, there's just a lot of input and there's just a less filtering of information.
Justine Clay:ust the flow of information and paying attention to all of it, or random parts equally. So imagine that that's your whole day right and the brain isn't just sifting things out or saying I'm gonna set that aside or I'm not gonna think about it.
Justine Clay:Just it's taking all in. So then imagine now you get to 11 o'clock, the kids are in bed, the dishwasher is going this is my husband I'm using him as an example and then he's like he picks up his bass and he starts playing a little bit. He could lose two hours that way. It's how his brain, like the rhythm of the guitar and just like being on his own and being able to just like hyper focus in on something, is relaxing to him. [Brooke Monaghan] Yeah, that makes total sense. [Justine Clay] In like the recalibration, right. And so for folks that say, struggle with prioritization, struggle with organizing, you know what to do, or bless you if they're working in a you know an environment where people are throwing deadlines at them and it's just super high stress, you know nighttime might be the time when they can actually work on something. No one's around and I think there's also don't quote me on this but I think there's also biologically, the rhythm skews late anyway. So I think it's a biological component, yeah, and then sort of a social component, does that make sense? [Brooke Monaghan] Totally yeah.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, that's interesting. I did not, I didn't, I was not aware of that.
Justine Clay:Oh and another thing they can disregard, that you can only work on one thing at a time. Most folks. If you say to them you're gonna work on this project, they're gonna just freeze. But if you're like here's three projects, you pick what one you wanna start on or how you wanna work on them. Here's the expectations here are the whatever. But that's a lot easier for folks. [Brooke Monaghan] Oh, okay.
Justine Clay:That's what general contractors. Our general contractor. He's as ADHD as they come, I swear. He's like buzzing around doing all of the things, but you can't get him to send you an email. You can ask him to get like one invoice sent to you. You know he's zipping around doing all of the things that he's got all in his head.
Brooke Monaghan:Right, right.
Brooke Monaghan:So what I'm --
Brooke Monaghan:What immediately comes to mind for me hearing that because I have worked with so many people who have had such a hard time trying to figure out systems that work for them is that, like for some people, it works really well for them to have like a plan and it's like just show up at your desk.
Brooke Monaghan:I'm like this I wanna show up at my desk and I wanna have my list of the five things that I decided I was gonna do that day and I wanna do those five things. For other people, it works a lot better to have like a much longer list of things, maybe prioritize, like which of these things are like they need to get done, and but then show up and like choose which ones you're gonna do that day, on the day of, and do them when it feels good for you, and maybe you allow yourself to do some things that are not quote unquote work related during the day, knowing you might come back to it later at night and maybe you know, and if that works for you, like that works a lot better for some people and it sounds like in this person's case, that's more of what they're craving and you're saying that that's actually gonna work better anyways, to give themselves a little bit more flexibility. [Justine Clay] Yeah, totally so. [Brooke Monaghan] Interesting.
Justine Clay:That was a great reframe of what I was saying that you pulled out exactly the perfect point. So, exactly so. But what they're then dealing with is they're having to then swim upstream against what they are told is the right way to do things or what is productive. And so that's where, like, just having that sense of confidence and autonomy about like no, this is how I do this, which, by the way, is why so many neurodivergent people are also entrepreneurs, because they're working their way and they can work on their own hours, right? Yeah, to your point, get the things out of the way that you.
Justine Clay:Still it can't be completely open, because then it's low container. But if there are certain things, and then there's only one thing I would say you should have a routine about. Admin, because admin is like kryptonite for most folks I know with ADHD. It's like there are some rules about anything with ADHD that I think I've learned, or principles let's say. Make it interesting, make it meaningful, make it visual, make it visible and mix it up. So, for the most part, admin doesn't check any of those boxes.
Justine Clay:The most you can really do is like I'm gonna make it meaningful in that, like I'm doing this thing so that my business runs, I make this money, I can put my kid into whatever. It's gotta be connected to something else, not just like admin for the sake of it. And so that's so difficult for folks to kind of get over that hump, I would say Friday morning, no negotiation, or whatever day it is, that's admin day and you just get it done because you're never gonna wanna do it and waiting for that inspiration to strike. And then what happens is when folks do neglect that and they don't know where their invoices are and they haven't invoiced for the job, and now they start getting into financial situations and then that is really stressful. So that's the one thing where I'm a bit more of a hard ass and just like that's the one thing. You've just gotta like get over yourself and do the damn thing, because once you start, for the most part it's okay.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, and it sounds too like something that comes up as you say that that I'm curious about is like, or that I would add, maybe is getting curious about how you like little things that you can do that make doing the boring stuff more enjoyable. So one of my favorite hacks this is a life hack of my life. I use this all the time. Things I don't wanna do, I do them in the bathtub. [Justine Clay] Amazing. [Brooke Monaghan] I literally I cannot tell you how many emails, I love writing sales copy and marketing, like newsletters in the tub. And is it risky that I have my laptop on a bathboard across the tub? Yes, it is. It's a risk that I am willing to take because I do my best work in tub.
Brooke Monaghan:And things like anything I don't wanna do. I'm like I'm gonna get in the bubble bath. I don't care what time of day it is, I'll do it in there. But also things like just like. Like sitting in a different spot in your house that doesn't feel like you're allowed to sit there when you're working, you know. Like not doing it at your desk. Or like making yourself like a nice drink or something Like doesn't need to be alcoholic, but like do you make yourself like a fancy coffee drink every time that you sit down for your admin or something. Or do you do your admin at well. No, for ADHD people, maybe doing your admin at a coffee shop is not a good idea, but do you do your admin, like in a different place. That feels like, oh, I'm kind of breaking the rules a little bit like. This is a place this doesn't really count as work, but this is where I'm gonna get it done, you know.
Justine Clay:Yeah, and sometimes putting yourself into a sort of a novel environment might be enough to give it interest and novelty, because that's the other thing is like the ADHD brain like, likes new things and it likes novelty and interest and it hates boring things, right, which is like we can all relate to, which is kind of funny how she used the sort of tantrum child thing, right, like it's just like it's a good analogy.
Justine Clay:Yeah, our brains are sometimes so. I love that and it's funny because that's so personal to you, because I'm one of those people I'm not a bath person and I never have been. So I'm hearing this and I'm just like, oh my God, I can't think of anything worse, right. But when you say the coffee shop, I'm just like, oh yeah, I like that idea and actually I just what, when I wanna write something, because I'm in a different environment, I can't really go anywhere. It's kind of a treat because I can have my coffee and my cake or whatever it is. So I gamify it or at least just make it more interesting for yourself.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, yeah, so, okay. So, admin, is the one thing that you would say create some kind of routine around. You can get curious about how to make that routine a little bit more bearable, but it's the one thing maybe to hold yourself to. And then what would you say about like, how to like, where this person can start maybe to sort of work out a better system for themselves, to like at least feel like they know what it is that they're doing and they're doing the right things.
Justine Clay:Yeah, that's a really good point. So I think the first thing I would do is I always like to look big picture at the business and I would say what area of the business feels most chaotic to me. All my process right.
Justine Clay:So the person who asked this question. The things that she was really asking for about was how do I prioritize tasks, how to focus on delivery and accountability. Those are the three things that I pulled out of there. So, with the prioritizing, I would say that I'm just looking at my notes. Right here We've talked about the reframing of like structure and productivity a little bit, whereby it's like, instead of thinking about it being a linear thing or something that just feels like really restrictive and uncreative and tight, think of it more like a framework, Like. You know those I don't know if you were around when you were a kid, but we used to have in England these climbing frames. They're like a dome. [Brooke Monaghan] Yeah, yeah, yeah! [Justine Clay] And then you can climb on it any which way, but literally you've got kids climbing on the inside You've got people using like a monkey bar, right.
Justine Clay:So the structure is there, but then how you engage with it can be multiple different ways, right. So the first thing I would think about is, like, what are the areas of my business and those kind of fall into, like broadly, a few categories Value creation, value delivery, marketing, sales, finance and admin? I'll say finance and admin in one, because, especially with small businesses, film and as pop, you can push them in together. So it sounds to me like for the most especially ADHD folks and creatives, is the value creation bit, which is like coming up with the ideas, coming up with the. That's like try, stop that from happening, like you can't, right, yeah, that's something that it makes sense where she or the creative or the entrepreneur should focus on that stuff. That's the unique, like connecting existing ideas in newer, novel ways. You know, all of that good stuff that comes with divergent thinking, right. The value delivery. Now that's where it's like how does this get out into the world? How does my framework live in the world as a service, as a product? And I know that she says she's done a lot of work on that with you, you know, identifying what your products are. So then I would say, okay, if there's a delivery issue.
Justine Clay:And one of the things I've learned about my ADHD clients too is like they love systems, they love processes. It's not like they can't do that right, but like what's the way? If you're visual, could you come up with like a flow chart and just be like write down all of the things that either I do or I want to do or need to happen? Where are either they falling in the gap or is the client falling in the gap? What's not working? Where does it break down? Is it that like they just hate answering emails and so then they get behind?
Justine Clay:And then there's the client communication thing, like that's the problem, or is it that they never bill the thing in time? Or they don't have an onboarding process? That's like tightened up enough. When you know where the hole is, that you keep falling in, you can build a process or a system for that. Yeah, the whole thing about that and I know you're a processes and systems person is you can create a process like literally on a piece of paper, you can use a piece of software or you can outsource it, usually a combination of all three. So what are you going to say?
Brooke Monaghan:Well, as you were saying that, I was just like yes, like I always say, like anytime that anyone's like, oh, things feel so disorganized, like I need to come up with a better system, I'm like, okay, feeling overwhelmed and feeling like things are disorganized is a feeling. Then there's an actual issue that needs to be solved, and they're two different things. If you try to create a system to make yourself not feel a certain way, you're not really going to hit the mark because you're not actually solving it. You're not actually creating a system to solve. You're going to put a balm on this like emotional thing that you're finding yourself in by creating a system without actually knowing what the system is for. So it's like the first thing you have to do is like identify what the actual problem is.
Justine Clay:Exactly, exactly. I have a slide in one of my webinars for business strategies for ADHD creatives and in that I say, like a system is a very specific solution to a very specific problem. So there's not like a playbook somewhere of the systems you need to have in your business. You make them up to resolve a problem or achieve efficiency in something you're doing again and again and again and again and again that you don't personally need to be doing again and again and again or in all different ways reinventing the wheel every time. So you're right, it's just like you know, and that's a thing is a lot of times with you know sort of folks of ADHD is they do feel overwhelmed a lot. So even just that parsing out, I feel overwhelmed. It's not a system for feeling overwhelmed. But let me look what's the thing that causes me the most agita? You can just look at it and break it down into like the parts of a business which aren't that many. Then there's usually somewhere where you're like oh, here's where it keeps going on, because I hate doing bookkeeping, and because I hate doing bookkeeping, I don't know what my numbers are. And because I don't know what my numbers are, I feel like I have no value or no worth. And because I do that, I'm really shit at sales calls, right, it could.
Justine Clay:Just if I knew what was coming in and going out, I'd feel pretty proud of myself or I'd know what I need to do. But I'd have clarity and it might. I don't want to do big bookkeeping Hallelujah, I celebrate the decision, but then find someone else that can do it for you. Right, don't just ignore it, right? But now we have a very specific problem or diagnosis I don't like doing bookkeeping and that's the cause of all of the financial distress I'm feeling that's now bleeding out into all the other parts of my business. The solution for that is I need someone to do my bookkeeping and, yes, I need a software, and I probably need someone that can come in and clean it all up and get it all on an even scale or whatever right and then it becomes a very I'm not saying an easy problem to solve, but a very clear problem to solve.
Brooke Monaghan:Right, yeah, totally, yeah, totally.
Brooke Monaghan:So for this person, you know, one of the things that she had said was struggling with prioritization, and so it sounds like what you're saying is like okay, so if you so, like, let's start with prioritization, then let's get specific about, like, is it actually that? Is it that you are not sure what any of the tasks are that need to get done and so there's nothing to prioritize? Is it that you know what needs to get done but you haven't sat down and actually decided, like, what are the things that are most important? Is it that you know, like, what is actually happening around prioritization, or are you just telling yourself a story that you're a person who doesn't know how to prioritize stuff, or you're really dropping the ball with prioritization, because that would make sense that you would be telling yourself that story as somebody who's neurodivergent and is living in a you know, in a neurotypical world, and it was probably told that you don't prioritize well, yeah, right, and so, yeah, it's like parsing that out, like where's the thing that you're telling yourself and then like, what's the actual thing that's happening in there and how can we get specific on it? Then you can come up with a system and whatever that system is really. The only thing that matters is that you do it, yeah.
Justine Clay:Exactly. And here's the other thing. This is something I learned when I had babies. They're just like an enigma. You don't know what the hell they need. If anyone tells me, oh, I know what cry means what I'm just like I call BS because it's all just noise to me. It's like you don't know what to do. There's no handbook, right. And then you figure something out and you're like I cracked it. And then next week it's like yeah, and then you have the second kid and then you think okay, I got this, and that's a completely different alien, right? Like the first one.
Justine Clay:So it's a little bit like that with someone who has a neurodivergent brain is like, stop thinking that if you can just find the right silver bullet, the right process, the right this, everything will be fine. This is going to be a grab bag, an ever-shifting landscape, and that just comes with the territory of having this fantastic creative brain. Like you know, there's a I don't know which guy it is that, I think it's Hallowell who says that. Like you know, when he's talking to kids about ADHD he talks to, he describes it as having a race car brain with bicycle brakes, a Ferrari brain. And so if you acknowledge and just say, like it's always going to be changing, it's always going to be shifting. I'm going to have to keep mixing it up, so I need a grab bag of tools and things I can try. Then you don't beat yourself up about like, why do I keep blah, blah, blah?
Justine Clay:My husband often says when he loses his keys. I'm driving myself crazy. And I'm like. Yeah, me too. A little, you know just. But you know what I mean. It's just like that's not kind to yourself.
Justine Clay:Yeah, I didn't put them in the bowl that we put there for okay. Well, that happens sometimes, but 90% of the time they end up in the bowl now because we put the bowl there for the keys.
Brooke Monaghan:What I'm hearing and what you're saying, and this is something that I have. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have taken out like a planner or something and then like, look at this planner, look at how well I had it filled out for like three weeks, and then there's nothing after that. And then I moved to a different system. I happened to have fallen into a system that's worked for me for the past couple of years with Asana, but, like, still there's things that I'm always dipping in and out of, but I have found that so many people need permission to use something for a period of time that works for them and then, if you stop using that system -- [Justine Clay] You didn't fail. [Brooke Monaghan] No, and I always am like, listen, like you have a choice. At that point, you can either put your energy into beating yourself up for the fact that you're not sticking with the system, or you could just use whatever feels good for you this week and keep moving.
Brooke Monaghan:The goal is not to like figure out a way to be a perfectly productive person. We've all thought that was the goal because of the systems that we've lived in, the fact that we've been programmed to think that that is our job as human beings, and also I know the person who wrote in this question and I know that that's not actually what you value. So it's like, how do you kind of put those values into action and start to put your energy toward just making forward progress in whatever way works for you that day, and less energy into how do I make myself work in a way that I've seen other people working that I've told myself was the right way to do it?
Justine Clay:Agreed. You know, it wasn't until I met my husband almost 40, and I was reading a book. And I was just like, and I read and read, and read. I love reading. And I was just like I hate this book, I can't wait till I'm finished with it. And he was like, why don't you just stop reading it? And I'm like I was literally I thought I was not allowed to not finish a book. Now I just I love the show Friday Night Lights. I had the book. I didn't get very far through the first time. The second time I was stuck with it. I'm probably 40 pages and there's a big book, less 20 pages from the end. I just put it away again. I'm like I can't, I can't finish it, I'm just done. Like like that's progress, but to that point. I think sometimes, a lot of times, these answers are unsatisfying to someone who's just like yes, I know but I need something.
Justine Clay:So I want to take an idea, a suggestion, and it's a concept from Tiago Forte and it's the building of a second brain right.
Justine Clay:So if we think about our brain, our brain we use as a storage unit, as a calendar, as a problem solving machine, as all kinds of things, beautiful kinds of things that it's not supposed to be used for. Our brain is basically something that makes guesses what's going to happen, what all we need to do in response to that thing. It's a predictor, a guesser, and it's a problem solving machine. That's it. Now, if you think about someone who has less than optimal executive functioning and that's at the conductor at the front, there's just like a big right, You'll be a bit louder and like no, you'll never be quite over here. And yes, trumpets really loud, please. That guy's out to lunch, he's drunk, right. So let's say, oh my God, I completely lost my train.
Justine Clay:We can let the brain do its thing, which is come up with ideas, connect things in novel ways. Where could that stuff live outside of your brain? So what that looks like for me and the tool you use will be different. I have what I call a dashboard, a leadership dashboard in Notion. It was initially created by Tara McMullin of Explore what Works. I love it.
Justine Clay:You can make it your own, but in it I have my three commitments. I do one for each year, my commitments for the year and what that looks like in terms of strategic priorities. So commitments are how am I going to show up? What am I going to prioritize in my life? Not goals. So I'm going to commit to having deeper relationships, experiences over stuff, community building. Let's say those are my commitments. And then my strategic priorities and I do it within the context of business, but might be I'm going to give more talks, I'm going to do more in-person connecting with folks and blah, blah, blah. Right, so these are my priorities. Then you can have your values in there. So the things that are these guiding principles. So, if you think of it like as, like a one-pager, where it's almost like a cheat sheet, all the things I said mattered and all the things I said I wanted to focus on. So then I've got, like, my quarterly goals. Let's focus a bit less on that. But then I've got my projects. I've got my active projects, I've got my projects for next quarter and I've got my projects for the year.
Justine Clay:And the reason I like Notion is because you can have tiles and you can put an image in there, so there's a little visual and then there's a title so I can see it and you can move them around. You can just drag it to different places and I have what am I tracking? And those are like the things like numbers, right, like how many intro calls did I have. One of the things that I can connect with that are gonna tell me how, what am I doing? And it's so simple. It's just a one-pager you can. And then I've got a spot where I can put ideas. So if I have an idea for something when I'm out for a walk, I'm not now like, oh my God, I have to go build that program right now. Right, I'm like it's a good idea.
Justine Clay:Now is not the time for me to flush this out because I said I'm gonna do this thing. It's in my projects list. So it's a way where we can like not lose the things. It has to live outside of our brain and be on your phone. It can be here. You can make it a mix of visual as well as everything else. And it's this cheat sheet. And it's like so anytime she sits down she's like what the fuck am I gonna do today? She can open up that thing that she created when she was feeling more centered, more connected to what she wants to do, and she's like well, I've got any one of five projects I could work on right now, right, oh, wait a minute. It's Friday at noon, that's bookkeeping time, but that'll just take me an hour. I don't know how that rolls now. And any one of these projects, let me pick something.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, just giving yourself a external thing that you can look at to remind yourself of, like what you said was important, yeah, and what you said that you were gonna focus on and what you can do.
Brooke Monaghan:And then, but then in that moment, giving yourself the flexibility to choose, and I wonder if what could be helpful as like a tangible thing that this person might be able to do. As I'm hearing you say this, Justine, I'm thinking like what I would wanna do and listen. I am so overwhelmed right now and luckily I have a second brain and my second brain is called Asana. But if I didn't have it, what I would be so tempted to do is I would wanna sit down and I would wanna like brain dump every single thing that felt like it was knocking around in my brain and then look at that and be like, okay, what are there like categories here that I can kind of like organize things into and then make your own, whatever it is and it doesn't need to be in Notion, like you could put it on post-its if you wanted to and like put it on your wall. [Justine Clay] You could use your board and just put it on your wall exactly.
Brooke Monaghan:[Brooke Monaghan] Yeah but then at least it's like it's out of your brain and you are not having to put energy into worrying that you're gonna miss something which is only draining capacity from being able to actually execute on the things.
Justine Clay:Exactly. I always like to think of executive function as like, like the battery that we see on our, you know, on our computer. And I say, every time we have to keep making decisions, every time we have to create choices, every time we have to remember to do something, we're like draining.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah.
Justine Clay:Like just faster, and you wanna keep that battery as like full as possible, right, and be utilized. So things that matter to you, not on a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter, which is like worrying because I feel so overwhelmed. Right, that's not - not to say it doesn't matter, but just it's a big output functioning right, that could be negated, potentially.
Brooke Monaghan:Justine, is there anything that, like we have not chatted about in response to this question, that you feel like is important for us to speak to?
Justine Clay:[Justine Clay] The accountability piece, that's kind of like closing the loop on this stuff, right, Because we have the feelings and you and I were in a coaching group together for a long time when we have a problem in our business a legit problem, but it's usually layered with a whole bunch of emotions that come from us, some of this, some background, right.
Justine Clay:And then when you have other people around you, they say, well, what I'm hearing is a conflation of these two things, or remember that thing that you did here, or I had that experience and like, this is how I did this, and then you just say, oh okay, no big deal, right, and then you go away and you do it and you're done, right, I think accountability is really great, and accountability can look like lots of different ways right, it could be a coach, it could be a group, or it could be a few friends that also are small business owners I did that for years where it's like you meet every like, whatever once a week in the morning and you just have someone. And there are a few simple questions what are the three things you're working on right now? Or what's the one thing you're working on right now. What's the thing that you're struggling with?
Justine Clay:What support do you need? Getting it out of your head is so amazing. So to build that sort of feedback loop with a few trusted people or one trusted person or whatever, is amazing. The other thing is you can do body doubling. That's something that is an ADHD thing and you can just look up body doubling and you can either create your own, but also there are places that just host them so you can pay a little bit like a coworking space.
Justine Clay:You show up, it's a Zoom room. Sometimes you talk, sometimes you don't. It's for a certain amount of time.
Brooke Monaghan:We do them twice a month in Fruition for free. So join fruition. com, everybody come and join us. We have a Friday in the beginning of the month and a Monday at the end of the month, and it's totally silent and we block 90 minutes and you can put in the chat what it is that you want to accomplish during that time and nothing is recorded. You don't even need to be on video. And when I tell you that I get so much done during that time, I'm like why haven't I been doing this the whole time?
Justine Clay:Yes, so there you go. So that's the final piece to her question. I think we spoke about prioritization, we spoke about delivery and we spoke about accountability.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, amazing. [Justine Clay] I hope that helps her [Brooke Monaghan] Thank you.
Brooke Monaghan:Justine, yeah, and I also understand the. It can be so frustrating when you just want an answer, but, truly, when you are trying to find something that works for you, when you're realizing that you don't do things in a typical way, forcing yourself into an answer is the opposite of the actual answer, which is to get curious about your own experience and what actually works for you. Yeah, yeah, but thank you for all of these tips. This has been a great conversation. I know so many people are going to need this and I really enjoyed connecting with you on this.
Justine Clay:Thank you. Thanks for inviting me to chat with you. I loved it. [Brooke Monaghan] Of course.