Thoroughly ADHD

Late, Lost, And Overwhelmed At Work

• Alex Delmar Coaching

Share episode

Send us a text

We lay out how ADHD shows up at work—mismanagement of our time, poor working memory, disappointing performance, irritability, impulsivity—and how falling behind often feels like a personal failing. 

Once you identify which behaviors are ADHD-related, you know what you can change and figure out how to approach it.

• time blindness, time optimism, and missed deadlines

• meeting pitfalls and memory overload

• slow writing, perfectionism and bottlenecks

• environmental barriers 

  secrecy, shame, and burnout

• irritability, impulsivity and reputation risks

• reframing strengths to land as value

• next steps and where to learn more


Have I missed something that is keeping you from doing your best at work?



Alex Delmar:

You may not realize the extent to which ADHD affects your performance at work. You might think this is just the way you are: late, disorganized, temperamental. Maybe you've repeatedly been passed over for promotion, or you've never even applied for a better job. But if you can identify the ADHD-related behaviors that are holding you back, you can change them. First, you need to recognize, is this really me or is it my ADHD?

Alex Delmar:

Keep in mind, ADHD shows up differently for every individual. No one struggles with all the things all the time, but there are many behaviors that people with ADHD tend to have in common, and I'll identify some of them in this episode.

Alex Delmar:

I'm Alex Delmar, a certified ADHD coach and person with ADHD. Welcome to Thoroughly ADHD, where I share what I've learned to help other people with ADHD enjoy better lives.

Alex Delmar:

Probably the most frustrating trait for our supervisors and colleagues to deal with is our mismanagement of time. A number of factors contribute to problems in this area, including time blindness, which is being unaware of or inaccurately judging the passage of time, and time optimism, where you seriously underestimate the amount of time it takes to do things.

Alex Delmar:

Disorganization, trouble prioritizing, difficulty with task initiation, and procrastination also hamper our ability to get things done in a timely manner. The most obvious way this shows up at work is that you are often late. You start the day already behind schedule, you show up late for meetings and appointments, and you regularly miss deadlines or barely make it in under the wire.

Alex Delmar:

There's also a lot of room for error when it comes to meetings and appointments, in addition to being late to them. You might double book or forget appointments, show up to meetings without important items, or not having completed the required preparation. You talk over people because you're afraid of forgetting your brilliant idea, or you talk too much over explaining your position, or you've zoned out and are afraid to speak at all because you've lost track of what other people have said.

Alex Delmar:

Another reason meetings cause problems is that working memory issues make it extremely difficult for people with ADHD to both take notes and follow a conversation. You might not follow up correctly on an assignment because you missed important details while trying to take notes, or you forgot the task entirely because it wasn't written down.

Alex Delmar:

Another way working memory issues show up is that it may take much longer for you to generate written work than for your average coworker, especially if you have to reference outside materials or organize complex thoughts. A history of being misunderstood or of making careless mistakes can also slow you down as you repeatedly review and revise your work in a quest for perfection. An email, a report, a presentation, whatever it is, it probably takes longer than your employer thinks it should.

Alex Delmar:

Other reasons you might not complete tasks in a timely manner are that you have a hard time getting started, you spend too much time on the wrong thing, or even that you unnecessarily start over every time you make a mistake. Even the workplace itself can limit your productivity. For instance, big open rooms filled with cubicles might be too noisy and distraction-filled for you to concentrate, but being too far removed from the action means you don't get external cues that help you stay on task.

Alex Delmar:

Because it takes you longer to get your work done, you may stay late to finish or come in on your day off or bring work home with you. And because we carry a lot of shame around our perceived inadequacies, we don't tell anyone. Many of us don't trust our judgment about when it's reasonable to ask for help, so we just don't do it. When we fall too far behind, we earn a reputation for being unreliable. We feel guilt over not getting things done and letting people down, and we promise to do better even though we don't really know how. This cycle puts us at risk of burning out.

Alex Delmar:

Misunderstanding our own behavior, stress, and exhaustion combined with the emotional dysregulation associated with the ODHD brain can cause us to act in ways that our coworkers characterize as moody or irritable. It doesn't help that we get extremely annoyed if someone interrupts our concentration and we might even snap at them. When strong emotions arise, for instance, when we feel we've been treated unfairly combined with impulsivity, we might even storm off the job in a fit of temper, possibly never to return.

Alex Delmar:

Even without strong emotion involved, there's a range of ways that ADHD-related impulsivity might hurt you at the workplace, including overpromising results, accidentally underbidding contracts, jumping into a project without knowing how to complete it, making inconsiderate comments, contradicting your boss, or offering to take on responsibilities you really don't have time for.

Alex Delmar:

Even our assets, like empathy, the ability to generate many ideas, think outside the box, see big picture pitfalls, and willingness to play devil's advocate, can harm us if we don't consider how we present them at our place of employment.

Alex Delmar:

To recap, some traits that are holding you back in your career are the mismanagement of time, which includes lack of planning, incorrectly prioritizing, disorganization, perfectionism, distractibility, and problems with task initiation, all of which contribute to poor performance, exacerbated by an unreliable working memory, irritability, impulsivity, and not understanding how to structure your workday and your workplace to best support your ADHD brain.

Alex Delmar:

Luckily, these are all areas you can improve. Either there are skills you can learn, or external structures you can develop, or modifications you can make that will remove these roadblocks to your success. You can check out other episodes of Thoroughly ADHD for ideas on where to start.

Alex Delmar:

Please let me know if I've missed something that is keeping you from doing your best at work. Your time is valuable, so I hope this was useful. If so, please like, follow, subscribe, and come back next Tuesday. Thank you.