Focused - 113: ADHD and Cognitive Science, with Brittany Smith

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Brittany Smith is a cognitive scientist and very focused. She's also diagnosed with ADHD and she has a lot of wisdom to share in this week's episode.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, my friend and yours, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How's it going? It's going great. How about you? I am looking as we record this. There's a shiny box two feet away from me with a brand new MacBook Air in it, and it's unopened. That is how much I love the Focus

audience. I didn't say, let's delay the podcast. I'm like, nope, this is just going to have to wait. Nice. That is dedication right there. I am, man. I am dedicated. All right. But we have a guest today. We do. We've got a couple of announcements. I'll just do these quick. We've got the Focus calendars, which are available. Those've got the focus calendars which are available those are the new year calendars we'll have a link to those in the show notes they're dry erase this year but you know the drill if you're familiar with the new year calendars it gives you the whole year at a glance starts on a monday uh broken down into quarters they're

really slick i've got one i know you've got one and you can have your own now if you follow that link in the show notes and then we've also wait just I want to add to that because we went out on a limb this year and got the ones with the dry erase. That means if everything goes crazy in 2021 like it did in 2020, you're good. You can erase it and start over. Exactly. So don't be shy. Get a calendar. They look really great. And I think having it on your wall, a year view is something that can really help you with your focus. fm slash focused and support this podcast specifically you'll get a special uh feed that gives you longer episodes of the focus podcast so more focused but then at the end we go into a rabbit trail and dive deep on something that we kind of gloss over in the episode itself because maybe it doesn't quite fit or we want to nerd out about something really technical uh we've done

that a couple of times now. We've done it with some guests, and today's guest is going to hang out, and we're going to have a special segment for that as well. It's not going to be on every episode, but we're going to try to do it for every episode. Yeah, and we appreciate the support. Absolutely. So without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Brittany Smith. Hi, I'm so excited to be here. Welcome to the podcast, Brittany Smith. Hi, I'm so excited to be here. We're excited to have you.

You know, I met you, I think it was MacStock or maybe actually the road to MacStock. Actually, you know what? It was the holiday gift guide with Chuck Joyner last year. Yes, that's right. You were talking about yoga pants on Mac Voices. In all fairness, I said, don't get the yoga pants. Get the other ones that are like yoga pants that look business-y. But that was a terrible gift in hindsight because no one has to wear professional pants. Well, then I went on Mac Voices and talked about pen and paper. But if there's anybody on Mac Voices that would know a lot about yoga pants,

I would just assume it's Chuck Joyner. I mean, I feel like that guy is probably an expert. Yeah, very, very true. Well, since that moment, which is my first experience with you, Brittany, I've dug into some of the stuff that you do. And I know that you have a lot of neuroscience background. You've been doing stuff with the ADD community. And that's a topic that comes up on this show. Like the feedback that we get is the productivity challenges people with ADD specifically. And I always wanted to talk

about that, but didn't feel like I was the person to speak to it. I don't have the experience or the knowledge. So I'm very excited to have you join us. Yeah, absolutely. Whatever I can help illuminate. Awesome. Before we get to that, though, let's just talk about you and maybe kind of your productivity, your focus challenges, that kind of stuff. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you make? Yeah, I'm Brittany Smith. My life motto is I make stuff suck less. That could be, you know, removing barriers from getting things done, finding a way to make something that might be boring or difficult, fun, maybe even nerdy, and take the pressure off, normalize the things that don't work,

find simpler ways to solve a problem, sort of things like that. I started making some short videos in the last year about our brains and devices working in better harmony. Sometimes they're simple, like turn off notifications. And sometimes they're sort of about hiding the apps that might be distracting to us so we can focus on what we want to. I think that's a big deal. You know, it's just since we even started making this show, the science is kind of coming to light now. And people are starting to realize that, you know, we've gone through this revolution of attention and focus just in the last couple decades, and arguably really in the last decade, where like never before in human development have

we had something we can carry in our pocket that can become an instant, you know, dopamine machine. And the, you know, what are the results of that? And I think that's something we really kind of want to continue to cover on this show. But tell us a little bit about your experience and where the science stands on that from what you've seen. Yeah, anytime you get something that's too much or too tempting, it can get in your way. Part of the thing is they do research. The game industry does research, sort of like the casinos did back in the day, and I'm sure still do, what gets people's attention the most, whether it's social media or a game, whatever. And it's called clickbait for a reason. They found what people were drawn to and try to exploit that. It may not be malicious, but it gets their numbers up. Yeah, it feels kind of malicious sometimes, though, right? Sometimes it is.

Yeah. Sometimes it's not. Yeah. So where does that, can you just give us a personal example? Like, where do you struggle maybe with some of that stuff? I mean, I love my shiny devices. I got my first handheld device. It was a pocket PC in 2001 so that I could have a thing that would remember stuff that I was going to forget. I didn't know I had ADHD then. I was just compensating. And it was great, but I didn't have apps. I didn't have games. I had

Word and a calendar and reminders that were going to make sure I paid my bills. And I wasn't cluttered with stuff. But as things become bigger and more and your phone can have everything on it, the dangers increase drastically. Personally, I get stuck on things like everybody else. That's how I come up with these cheats or tricks. I can go down a rabbit hole, same as anybody else. And so I try to set things up to prevent that. It doesn't always work, right? Like, recently, I had a video for a conference I was a part of. And I have never had YouTube views like that before. And it was kind of addictive to check it because all the conference attendees were on my channel. And it was easy to get sucked into. So I had to tell Siri to stop suggesting the YouTube Creator app because I was getting

sucked into it. You know, that's a great example because that's something that maybe people wouldn't think about is changing the Siri suggestions for apps. They would maybe just go in and follow the advice that a lot of people have shared. Just turn off your notifications and think that that's good. But there's obviously other stuff that you can do. What are some of the other maybe systems that you've set up for yourself to help you stay focused on the things that are important to you? I use shortcuts a lot, like a lot, a lot. And they sort of run my life for me, which means,

you know, if I have problems with shortcuts syncing I did at the start of I was 14, it can be pretty disruptive, but they really work for me and it can be really extreme. Do you know what? I'm not good at having the willpower to do at 4 a.m. Anything. Yeah, I was just saying, get out of bed. Yeah, I was just saying, get out of bed. And so I have a shortcut that's set for my wake-up time that says, okay, take your pill.

Now do the meditation and pulls up the draft that has my meditation cues. And okay, now do push-ups. And it just, it goes to the next thing. I don't have to remember anything, which is great because I wouldn't. And it leads me through my morning. And I know it sounds ridiculous to some people, but it works for me. And I've also learned when to quit and not over automate, which is also an important thing to watch out for. Well, Brittany, can I just stop there for a second? Something you say, it really resonated with me. We talked about this kind of in the prep call for the show today.

And focus is a big issue. I mean, I make a podcast about that. Automation is a big issue. I make a podcast about that too. But I really like the idea of what you kind of, you combine them in the sense of saying, look, you know, my monkey brain, and we all have monkey brains. They're trying to figure out the best way to take advantage of these shiny objects that we carry in our pockets. And we don't know exactly how to get around that. I mean, the problem everybody listening to the show is facing is that we have literally thousands of years of evolution that tells us that, you know, that next email that's from the Nigerian prince is actually going to be the email that makes us a million dollars or, you know, whatever, insert saber

tooth tiger analogy here. But the, but so we're trying to work against something that's built into our brain, but then you say, okay, well, I'm going to use automation to try and get around that foundational programming in my brain. And I mean, how did you get to that conclusion? And what are the steps you took once you did? It was back in grad school that I first discovered Keyboard Maestro. And I would have done anything to have that on my phone, because that's the thing that's with me the most. I love my Mac, but I have a limited amount of time. I can sit still and get stuff done. It's a hard line, and then I just can't look at that particular screen anymore. And I would have given anything. And when I found out about Workflow, it was a game changer. And of course it had all kinds of limitations. Shortcut still does,

but they've been getting less and less with time. And it was so eye-opening. So it was really that I desperately wanted it to exist and kept my eye out until I found something that started approximating it. All right. So you started with the automation you do at 4 a.m. Okay. And that's a big one. I think a lot of people, and what you described sounded to me like it's a bunch of, it's firing off tasks or calendar reminders for you. Do you have any other like small automations that you use as you get throughout your day to kind of help avoid distraction? To avoid distraction specifically. That's interesting. I mean, I do have some tasks that when I go to start the tasks, it'll do like set things, turn the lights to the right color.

If I want music to play, it'll prompt about that, you know, start the right toggle timer, those sorts of things that I'll have automated. Those are some of my shorter ones. toggle timer, those sorts of things that I'll have automated. Those are some of my shorter ones. I do run my coaching practice out of shortcuts also. And those are mostly launched with a URL scheme. But the nice thing about that is I'm not going and looking for a thing. And that's part of what doesn't send me down the rabbit holes. Very much like in your contextual computing webinar that I saw, they trigger the right thing at the right time. Oh, I have a calendar alert that it's time to get ready for my coaching appointment. There's a URL scheme.

Yeah. And that's going to launch all the tasks when you're ready. So you're just jumping from the decision to the action as opposed to getting caught in the middle somewhere. Yeah. And I won't remember all the steps because I just won't. Small steps are boring. Do you ever deal with a lack of motivation or when the thing pops up from your automation that says time to do this, do you find it easy to just engage with the task? I'm really glad you brought up motivation because that is a huge issue for everybody,

but it's a big issue that comes up with ADHD a lot. And yes, motivation is huge. And that's part of what these help with is I don't really have to think, oh, I have to do this. Now I have to get the motivation to do it because I hit a button and the other steps happen. And so it removes so much friction that would be eroding my motivation if I had to do it manually. And so it is because hitting the button is easier than sometimes opening an app. It's a tap. I can't tell you why that's different, but it is. And so having that prompt, it's a little magic. It really does mean that I need less motivation to get started. Once you get started, how long do you typically

work on something? Is it like you got a prompt and then it says time to write and you spend the next hour writing? Or do you have to constantly be throwing a prompt in your face using automation saying, hey, do this, do this, do this? If I had constant one saying, do this, do this, I would get alarm fatigue the same way as anything else would do. No, what I will have it do is it's time to write, now launch Pomodoro app. So it does the steps. The last thing it does is launch the app I'm using for Pomodoro. And so then I'll have my work sections to do that have the timer. So then the timer guides me after that. Gotcha. It timer guides me after that.

Gotcha. That makes sense. It does. And David, I'm curious your perspective on this because I know you've written about hyper-scheduling. And from my experience, the shorter blocks, like the Pomodoro timers, the half-hour blocks, are harder for me to sit down and engage with the work. I do better when I've got larger blocks to work with. But I could totally see another scenario where you work better with the smaller blocks because you say, I'm just going to do this for 25 minutes. That's the whole idea behind the Pomodoro. I don't do a five-minute break. I don't call it a break.

There's something in my brain that sees five minutes, that thinks it's a break, that's like, oh, this is a disruption from my work. It's a disruption from my workflow. And I call it a stretch and it's two minutes. And I get up and I stretch, like physically look somewhere that's not the computer, maybe walk into the other room, and then I come back to it. Before I leave, I write down what was I working on so I can come back. That way it's not actually disrupting a gigantic series of tasks, but it's also not encouraging repetitive stress injury from sitting there too long. I have a hip injury and neck and I can't do the same thing that long without stretching. But I also noticed that when I get up and I take that little short break, if I've been stuck on a problem, I will find my solution

so much faster. There's a lot of good creative literature on problem solving and taking breaks. But just that little mindset shift for just two minutes, it can help me figure out the problem or realize I'd kind of gone down the wrong road. And, oh, I've been writing this other part, but this post was actually supposed to be about something else. Oh, crap. And I don't go down that as far if I get up and take a stretch periodically. Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. The idea, you know, the Pomodoro brakes are long enough to get you off track, but not long enough to actually get a lot of rest. Yes, I very much dislike that amount of time. I often will put a bunch of them together with like a, you know, a bio brake in between. And that's about it. Mike, how I mean, do you do Pomodoro timers, Mike? And if so, what's your strategy? I used to. I think they're great for motivation to get started, but I never wanted to

stop at 25 minutes when they were over and the five minute break to me always felt awkward too. I've actually got this thing. It's called an Essington timer. It's like a fancy hourglass style Pomodoro timer that I got off of Kickstarter. They have these, they call them nanospheres. They're like these little steel balls. So it creates this very soothing sound when you flip it over. And the idea behind it is that you hear that sound and that's kind of your cue to get started with your work. And I actually don't even use it anymore. But for a while, this was really important for me because I would flip it over to get started. I'd hear that sound and then it was easier for me to focus on the thing that I was doing. But then I would get lost in the work and an hour or sometimes two hours goes by. It's obviously finished by then,

but it doesn't flash a notification in my face saying, hey, take a break now. I never really liked that. David, do you use any sort of Pomodoro app system or have you in the past? Yeah, I just use a timer. I'll just set a timer. And it is a thing I use when I get stuck. So like, sometimes you find yourself having a morning or a couple hours where you really didn't get anything done, and you feel like you're about to lose the day. That's kind of like the in case of emergency break glass technique for me. And I'll go ahead and set a timer, I'll pick something that I really, you know, my big thing for the day and say, okay. And often I set those timers for 45 minutes instead of 25.

And that seems to be just fine for me. And I'll just set a timer. Although I like the idea of this glass with the beads. I have, I don't think, I don't really talk about this much on the show, but I have tinnitus, which is, I always hear ringing in my ears. So I almost always need some kind of background noise. I, you know, I listen to rainstorms all the time through my devices or some jazz or whatever, but I think that would be kind of a nice sound. It is. Like I said, I really don't even use it anymore, but it was definitely key for me for a period of time when I was, I would define it as learning to work from home. The skills that you need to focus yourself are very different than the skills that you need to be motivated to do work in an office environment, which I do have experience in.

But in that environment, you're constantly just having things that are urgent thrown in your face. And so it's kind of obvious what you need to do next. The moment that you break free of that external pressure, you kind of feel like, okay, now I'm going to get all this stuff done because I can go at my own pace and I don't have to be bombarded by all this stuff that really isn't that important. And then you learn that you're not as disciplined as you thought you were. And then you learn that you're not as disciplined as you thought you were. I'm curious, Brittany, do you have any other sort of tips or tactics that you use personally when like, you know, you've got to do this thing, but the motivation just isn't right there? What are your things that you go to, like, in case of emergency break glass? There's always the option of the shorter Pomodoro. Like 10 minutes is okay. If you really can't handle starting for longer than 10 minutes, 10 minutes is okay. That's one of them. There's also the buddy system. Sometimes it's, hey, I'm really struggling to start on this thing. Do you want to work with me on something? Sometimes it's, hey, I'm really struggling to start on this thing. Do you want to work with me on something?

If you have somebody in your life that you can do that with, it can be a huge asset of helping you do it just by having emotional support of somebody else being there. There's also if you need a reward system of some kind, sometimes that's useful when it's like, I don't want to, but I really want that shiny new thing. Some people find those really useful. It's not for everybody because it's an extra thing to track, but it's helpful for some folks. Let's go back to the buddy thing for a second. How do you implement this? I was talking to Chris Bailey and he brought up the app, I think it's an app service, whatever focus mate, which is kind of like, it sounds stupid when you, when you describe it, because you're kind

of like booking a call with somebody and then you show up on zoom or whatever. And then you sit there and you do your task. They do their task. It's like, why are we connecting via video in order to just write our own thing? But there is that accountability, you know, that you have to show up for the appointment in order, and that's enough for you to a lot of times do the work. How do you implement that? A few different ways. Sometimes I'll just ask somebody that is in my, you know, circle, either virtually or in person.

But I also, I volunteer with a group called Ada and they have a Pomodoro group, which just sits down and works, shut off your microphones. And then I run an accountability group and we also have our own sort of accountability working time through that group that somebody organized because she's awesome. And so we have a few different options. A lot of the ADHD community call it body doubling, which I don't love that term, but it's the one that stuck. I like to call it an accountability buddy because I like that better. Okay, I'll take it.

But yeah, a lot of people love Focusmate and some people do it. I've heard of co-working spaces moving to that during the pandemic. And so some co-working spaces offer it too. Some people prefer it if they know the other person involved. Some people don't. There's a lot of personal choice there. But there are options. So explain to me more.

What is an accountability group? Ours has been largely shaped by the pandemic. Sure. But we talk about the stuff that we plan to do in the next week and share our victories. A lot of times with ADHD, we have a tendency to downplay the things we actually did and only focus on the stuff we did not successfully do.

And so hearing what other people... That's something that non-ADHD people never do. Oh, totally. Yes. Yes. Yes, that is absolutely true. It is a virulent problem. But when you have folks comparing themselves to others that have a different skill set,

that's always a place where it's likely to hit really hard. It doesn't matter what the difference is. It's likely to hit really hard. It doesn't matter what the difference is. And so a lot of times things that get celebrated in our accountability group are things that a lot of times the spouses of the people in the group would be like, yeah, and? But we know that finishing a giant project and calling the dentist are basically the same size for us. There's not a difference. Giant project, calling the dentist, they feel about the same. I actually think it's a good idea. I mean, so many people are working alone

right now that aren't used to it that I think it's really it seems like a great idea. Especially with the co-working stuff, because there's no one in the office next to you to make sure you're working. So why don't you go empty the dishwasher? I know you guys have been working from home for a while, but you had an adjustment when you first started. I remember, right? That's where this podcast came from, right? Yeah, exactly. I learned that I need to work in a room with no windows and just go down there, heads down as long as I can, and then eventually come up for air. So I'm curious, Brittany, you Brittany, a lot of what you were describing with the accountability groups sounds like a lot of the benefits that I would have used

to describe a mastermind. And I'm sure they're not exactly the same, but I'm kind of curious, what are the similarities and the differences between those, in your opinion? I have to admit to my ignorance, I've never been a part of a mastermind. It's my understanding that they're more involved than our accountability group, which is very loose. Sometimes we won't have seen people for weeks, whereas I feel like a mastermind is a lot stricter. Of course, an accountability group could be stricter too.

It's just sort of the style of the organization I'm volunteering with. But yeah, I think it's looser, but I don't really know that much about a mastermind. I think that's accurate. I mean, when you said that maybe weeks before you would see someone, I know that there are masterminds where you meet once a year or something like that. But my experience with them has been meeting regularly and you kind of develop relationships with the people that are in it. You understand where they're coming from. And so you're able to offer kind of insights as to like the path forward for them with certain things. And a big part of that is accountability. A lot of people join a mastermind because they

want someone to hold them accountable to what they say that they're going to do. But I can see where an accountability group would have a lower barrier to entry or be less intimidating for people. Yeah. And I know this organization does have a mastermind. It was during a scheduling conflict, so I couldn't try it out. But we had wanted to do more, say what your thing is to be accountable for, and we'll troubleshoot it with you. And then our first day of this group, 20 people showed up, which is not normal. And so we had to trim it back because you can't do that with that many people. And make sure everybody still has a chance to share something.

So because we started about a month before the pandemic started, we really needed more positivity. So it really shifted a lot to celebrating accomplishments for our particular group. There are plenty of others that work more traditionally, I think. This episode of the Focus podcast is brought to you by ExpressVPN, high-speed, secure, and anonymous VPN services. Get an extra three months for free when you go to expressvpn.com slash focused. We all know how VPN protects your privacy and security online, but do you know it can take your TV watching to the next level? By unlocking movies and shows that are only available in other countries. I wanted to watch the latest Star Trek season, but it's not available in the United States except on CBS All Access.

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whole topic of ADHD and productivity and focus. So maybe let's just kind of start at the beginning here. And from all of your neuroscience background, what are the big challenges that people face with ADHD as it pertains to productivity and focus? And how can they start to overcome some of this stuff? If I could, I'd love to start with my personal definition of ADHD, if I could. Sure. So I like to call it extrahuman. There aren't any challenges that are exclusive to ADHD. It's just more of them. It's a matter of degree and the confluence of these different brain wirings that all come together to form ADHD. There's no one who hasn't forgotten their keys

or misplaced something. It's just that we do it more. And all people are creative and inventive, but we do think differently than other people. That's what happens when you're wired differently. And so we'll come up with a different solution than somebody who's neurotypical. And so we have a lot of that creation drive, but everybody does. It's just a matter of degree. And so I just like extra human because it's all those things that are sort of idiosyncratic about humans, but just more of them, if that makes sense. Sure. My bookworm co-host has defined it as race car brain. I'm curious though. It can be pretty obvious, I think, from your definition where some of the challenges might come in.

But are there any benefits to this? Absolutely. It's just a different brain. It occurs in too high of a percentage of the population to be an abnormality that is entirely defunct. It's hereditary. If you've heard from video games or TV, it's hereditary. And we evolved as societies. We did not evolve individually, which means we have a tremendous

advantage to different types of brains all coming together in one society. It means we're going to come up with different solutions. We're going to have a slightly different skill set when you have a neurodiverse population. If we're all trying to do the same thing the same way, you're going to hit problems. If we're trying to do different things our own way, we can create glorious things all together. So it's really a different way of a brain being wired. It just really sucks at tax time or trying to do things that we're especially bad at. And it's really, isn't it kind of a spectrum? I mean, we all have, you know, I feel like, you know, it's not like a binary thing.

I mean, people have different degrees of this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's obviously the clinical definition, which I don't even like the DSM definition particularly, but it's what people use. So there's a clinical definition of it's causing problems. But yeah, it's all over the place. And where does one particular brain type end and another begin? And where is there overlap? Because you have two different types of neurodiversity in your head. And it really is not like the rainbow kind of spectrum, but you know, like the multi dimension color spectrum where it goes all over. It really is like that. And personally, I find it beautiful. And you mentioned earlier in the show that, you know, you were taking corrective action before you realized that you had this problem. When did you first discover it? And what were the warning signs?

And I guess let's start there and kind of learn how you dealt with it. It's a little embarrassing, but I was already double majoring in child development and psychology when my brother called me and he said, hey, I just got diagnosed with ADHD and we're basically the same person. You should maybe look into that. And I was like, no, that's crazy. And then I had this paper due. And I have never finished a paper more than 24 hours before it was due before. And I'd done lots of great papers, but they were not done 24 hours in advance.

Sure. And I was like, well, I've got this. I was working an event at Disneyland and I wasn't going to be able to work on it like the two days before it was due. I was like, well, that's fine. I'll just do the thing I do before the deadline. I shut off all the distractions. I'll go somewhere, you know, no internet, no other things.

I'm going to just like get it done. And I was horrified. I was horrified because it wasn't happening at the pace that it does when it's the deadline. Yeah. The deadline was taken away. And even though I knew I didn't have the time, I couldn't simulate it in the same way. And that's when I was like, oh, something's off here. I should go talk to

somebody about this. It's probably that thing my brother talked about. And so I got diagnosed very shortly after that. But that was my oh moment. Okay. But you have all this knowledge. So you started thinking, okay, how am I going to address that? And that's something that Mike and I would like to kind of share with the audience, because I'm sure there's people out there confronting this as well right now. Yeah. Where do you want to start? Sorry, I have a lot of rambles. Well, it occurs to me that what you did is you recognized something in the system of your life that was broken and then you started i'm assuming based on some of the stuff that you've shared with us this is kind of your mindset is like how do i fix the system how do i control the the inputs so that i get the the out and the

processes so that i get the outputs that i that want, whether that's finishing a paper by a deadline or preparing a talk for a virtual conference or creating a video for YouTube. So maybe just kind of walk us through maybe some of the things that you noticed and some of the things that you did in order to produce the outcomes that you wanted. in order to produce the outcomes that you wanted. Yeah, I think the fact that I was studying psychology and then cognitive neuroscience made it easy to start noticing these things as I was moving through and finding workflows that worked. My psychiatrist loved hearing my reports about the medication because he never got that much interesting detail or observation from anybody else. But, you know, I'm studying these cognitive principles, you know, about working memory load, about decision fatigue, and then I'm watching it happen in my workflow. And once I had like these names and knowledge of these principles, it was so much easier and more

natural to start finding the systems, giving myself permission to do it my way. And I'd done that a little bit even before. But oh, right. I should do it this way. I noticed when I open each app before I can open up and start my thesis on the way to get there, each one sucks just as much as the one before. So keyboard maestro and they're all open. Also at the same time, go ahead and close Safari and all the other distractions. And so I'd start using tools like that to cut away some of the barriers.

tools like that to cut away some of the barriers. So is this process of experimenting on yourself, for lack of a better term, and recognizing these things, then figuring out or even trialing some potential solutions, is this the same approach for all of us? Or is it different in some way for someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD? I think anyone who's really interested in their workflow can do the same things. The nice thing about having a shortcut of something beautiful to Google like ADHD is I can narrow my search. And if I'm looking on the internet to see what somebody else did, I can narrow my search. And if I'm looking on the internet to see what somebody else did, I can narrow the search to something that's more likely to work for me. I can't work on things the same way my mom does. I just, that's not how I'm wired. And so I can't follow what she does. I need something I can look up that might be helpful to me. And that really

helped me advance my search. It's a leg up, and I definitely took advantage of it. And once I discovered Brett Terpstra, sometimes I would just say, oh, did it work for Brett? Oh, maybe I should try it. And he became part of my go-to, at least for things on the Mac. Brett Terpstra is always the solution. The Terpstra test. is always the solution. The terpster test. Yeah, if it passes that. And yeah, I just noticed things about the environment. I believe everyone should be their own scientist and explore what's not working and really be honest with themselves about why. Sometimes it's embarrassing to think

that extra tap is in my way, and we shouldn't be. We should just acknowledge that extra tap is in my way. And is it weird that that's getting in my way when, you know, my ancestors had to fight for food? Maybe, but it doesn't change that that's the world we're in with our current information density around us. Yeah, I go up and down on that because it is exactly what you say. It's not that big of a deal, but then at the moment it feels like a huge deal.

And if it's something you're repeating a lot, it's worth doing something about. Yeah. If it's not something you're going to do a bunch, just hit the extra button or whatever the thing is and get it done. But there are ways we can look at it and criteria we can evaluate apps with. You know, if a task manager is ugly, I'm not going to keep using it. So I won't pick that one. Or, you know, notice the things in your computing life. Oh, right.

I went down that rabbit hole. What happened before that? And to start noticing because it will be different for each person. One of the common themes on our show is habits. I think it's a great tool to help yourself find focus. Does ADHD make habit formation easier or harder? Complicated. It makes it complicated. Okay. There has to be internal motivation for anyone to form a habit.

That is more so with ADHD, but that's just because we're a more so kind of people. We can form really, really strong habits. That's a bad thing if you're looking at risk for things like alcoholism. But it can be a really good thing if I don't have to think about it anymore. Usually because I formed the habit with shortcuts, but whatever. I know that I do push-ups and then I do plank and then I do sit-ups. As long as we can gather like the extra willpower to start forming the habit, because it does drain more willpower while you form the habit, you'll use less later when you just follow the habit.

Sticking to it can be hard. We're good at not wanting to do things that are boring, but it can be really, really powerful, but it does take a lot of work to set up. Okay. So if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like when it comes to habits, maybe the creation of them, let's just talk about the creation of a new positive habit. The creation of that habit and getting it to the point where you don't really have to think about it as much, that's going to take longer perhaps. But then once you get to that point, it'll be easier maybe to stick with it than it would

be otherwise. Yeah, and it depends on how much is physical versus mental. I don't know how to go into more detail than that, but it's definitely something I've noticed, not read any papers on. The biggest hurdle to starting a habit with folks I'm working with is usually that they're trying to do too much. If I'm going to start a morning routine, I better add exercise. I better add meditation. I better add all the things until suddenly it's not possible. So why start? And so I'll see that a lot. And so one of the things I'll work with is like, let's start what's minimum viable habit. And, you know, if they can really buy in at that level, you can

always build on more later. But right now, if doing that big one isn't working, let's try the smaller one. Because our eyes are bigger than our stomach when it comes to tackling things a lot of the time. You know, though, that's just kind of true for everybody, honestly. I think that habit formation, like whenever I have a friend who, like January is around the corner. And we're all going to have a friend that's going to tell us, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to run a marathon. I'm going to start a meditation practice and a new business, and I'm going to conquer the world. And you just look at them and you shake your head, you know what I mean? By January 31st. Yeah. It just doesn't work that way. And that's true for all of us.

So you mentioned starting with the smallest pieces, the, what was the term? Most minimum viable habits or something like that. I like everything with a minimum viable to start off with. I like that too. And I'm kind of curious because you've mentioned a little bit of your morning routine and you mentioned like the sit-ups and the planks and the stuff like that. So what did building that exercise specific routine look like for you? Did you start with just the push-ups and how long did it take

before you felt, okay, that one's down, now I'm going to stack something else on top of it? It started with the waking up, taking pills, aerobic workout and shower. That's how it started. And then after I had those under control, then I added in push-ups. And yes, it started with just push-ups. And then I added some sit-ups. And I think I'm at a good spot right now because what I wanted to do was move as many muscle groups when I first got out of bed as I could to sort of naturally wake up my brain. And so I'll start with like chair sits and then anyway, move from there from the big muscle groups. And then I could do the smaller ones just because that would get my blood flowing and wake up. And so then I'll get ready to do real exercise and do that and then

shower. So I've added over time, but even still, I have to watch out for adding too much and keeping an eye on that because then it'll break down again and I'll have to cut something and start over. Well, not start over, but readdress it again instead of have it be quite so automatic. I'm close to capacity. When you talk about adding too much, is it the number of things or is it the complexity of the things that can lead you to that point or both? Definitely those. For me, it's how I don't want it to be too many hours between when I woke up and when I'm ready to do stuff that's not my routine. And it is quite a few hours, but I also

get my exercise in and stuff like that. So I'm very happy with where it is. But yes, number of things, especially if you don't have a good prompt in place, you can have it on a list, but you have to know where the list is. And that's why I settled with shortcuts or with an interval timer, depending on your style. You could use that because it tells you the next thing to do. Can you give me an example of the complexity stuff? Where's the line there for you personally where something is simple enough to either work or too complex that it won't? ready to sit down for Zoom by a certain hour, then it only needs to include that. So really, you know, the whole the old David Allen as simple as you can get away with, but no more kind of thing. But the complexity can come in a lot of places. One of the places to get distracted, whether on a computer or in a physical space, is with transitions.

So I tried to remove as few of those as I could from my routine, because if I see something walking from one room to another, it could get me off track if I'm in a highly distractible state that morning. Also, keeping the space clear between those places can be really helpful because again, if I'm thinking, oh, right, I need to pick that up. That is another thing adding to my fatigue early in the morning. So that's the negative side of the visual cues in terms of transition. Do you ever use them intentionally as positive cues to do something instead? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, with Keyboard Maestro or with the shortcut, like I look at those and one, they make me happy because I like automating.

And two, they're like, oh, right, I'm going to do this thing. And it feels empowering instead of sluggish for me. That's not true if somebody doesn't love their automations like I do. But yeah, you can absolutely use them. I've had screensavers on my computer that were like, they were a reward I was working towards. And so it would remind me, oh, right, you're working towards this thing. So get the stuff done.

And yeah, we can use those powerful visual triggers for really cool things too. Can you give an example of that? Like a screensaver reward? In graduate school, which is where I picked up a lot of these things because graduate school is awful, they were hue lights because that was going to be my reward at the end of my thesis. And so they were cool things people had done like promotional materials for hue or a costume I really wanted to buy. Something that was part of my reward system would be on my screensaver. That's cool. I've never really thought of that, but it helps every little bit.

This episode of Focus is brought to you by Woven, the all-in-one calendar which is perfect for busy people. One of the big tipping points in my task management journey was when I realized that everything that I needed to get done needed to be done within the context of time. And that means that the calendar that you decide to use is very important. Good calendar tools can help you manage your time in such a way that you make the most of the time that you have available to you. That is the real difference between people who we look at and we say they are really productive or people who, like we've talked about in today's episode, have trouble focusing on something. A calendar can be the thing that helps you apply intention to your time and reduces the friction and activation energy when it's time to actually do those things,

because all you have to do is show up and honor the appointment that you have made either with somebody else or even with yourself. And Woven is one of those great calendar tools that can make your work easier to do. It syncs all of your calendars in one place, including your Google calendars, G Suite, and Microsoft 365 accounts, so you can see all of your time, both personal and professional. And I love this because when you think about the idea of work-life balance, it's always seemed a little bit ridiculous to me. There's just your life and you have to balance it. Work is a part of that, but so is everything else. And so you can't just look at one of these calendars. You need to be able to see everything. Woven also builds in scheduling links directly into your calendar so you can use these one-off scheduling

links to give to somebody that you want to book an appointment with. You can quickly time block your week using Woven's smart templates so you can plan that perfect week. And it also gives you analytics so you can easily calculate where you spend your time. so you can make time for what matters most. You really need to check this out. Take control of your calendar today, improve your workflow, and as a listener of this show, you can try Woven for free for 21 days. Just go to woven.com or click the link in the show notes. That's woven, W-O-V-E-N.com. Our thanks to Woven for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. All right, since the topic is focus, we wanted to talk a little bit about hyperfocus and ADHD.

How do those two ideas combine, or do they? Well, they absolutely can. Hyperfocus, a lot of the way people talk about it, it's a symptom of ADHD, but it's also a thing everybody does, like all the symptoms of ADHD. We think about hyperfocus in terms of, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole, or I was on Wikipedia all night, or something like that. Everybody talks about this, you're doom scrolling. all night or something like that, or everybody talks about this, you're doom scrolling. It can be this unfortunate, unintentional, really draining thing that we do sometimes instead of going to bed, which then will ruin your focus for the next day and can be a really vicious cycle.

And folks with ADHD are more prone to those. It's harder to pull out, especially if there's a weird medication balance. But we are. We're more prone to those long rabbit holes. Now, have you got some kind of system or strategy to help divert that? I mean, for myself personally, I know that if I don't catch myself in one of those rabbit holes in the first couple minutes, I'm doomed, you know? So I've really got to catch it early. But how do you deal with it? So I absolutely use downtime. It's not for everybody. I know that. Don't try it if you're

not really committed to sticking to it. Because once you start cheating on downtime, you've just created a habit of cheating on downtime and it's not actually helping anything. Well, explain what you mean by that. Because downtime. Cheating on downtime. Well, what do you mean downtime? Is that an app or is it just tracking time as downtime? It's a screen time feature built into iOS and macOS.

Okay. That will block everything but your approved apps. But it's not that hard to break through, which is why I'm like, it's really just that extra little nudge of, you didn't mean to be on this right now. And on iOS, it dims the apps, so they're less likely to really grab your attention.

Okay. And I appreciate those a lot. When things are bad, I might use a passcode, but I've been out of passcode land for a little while now, which is great. So you don't want to break in all the time because then you've just created the habit of ignoring downtime and it's not doing what it should for you. So I do use some of the screen time features. I also have rules about not being on my Mac too late. And my iPhone, I mostly rely on downtime. But yeah, I know after a certain hour, I'm not getting good stuff done on my Mac. I mostly rely on downtime. But yeah, I know after a certain hour,

I'm not getting good stuff done on my Mac. I'm just really setting myself up for a disaster. Another thing I've done is with time tracking apps that show the time in the toolbar. And this isn't as much for avoiding the rabbit holes, but I have definitely seen three hours on there before I go, oh, I'm done. And seeing that it had been three hours made it so much easier to pull out of it because it was just horrifying.

The data was right there. There's no arguing with the numbers. Exactly. A related thing I do is in Fantastic Al, I turn on the feature that tells me when the next appointment starts and you see it in your menu bar. And it serves the same purpose in a lot of ways to remind you, oh, yeah, I'm doing this now and I'm not doing that until then. And those visual reminders do help. Yeah. And I have rules around Googling.

If I'm going to go on Google, I'm going to try to set a timer. If I'm going to go on Google, I'm going to try to set a timer. I'm going to try to make sure I've made it really clear what I'm about to go look for so that I'll know if I got off track. It's not as big of a risk for me as it used to be. But those are some of the things that help me build better habits to try to avoid those long, long rabbit holes. Because after a while, I'm not finding anything good. I'm just like desperate seeking for the answer that doesn't exist on Google.

Sure. Yeah. I would add to it one more tip that I've kind of stumbled into is I've been trying toggle timers in addition to the timer app. And occasionally when I find myself having got lost for the last 30 minutes, I actually log it as unintentional time. And then I have to pay the piper. At the end of the day, I see that, oh yeah, I wasted a half hour right there. And then when you watch those numbers accumulate over the weeks and months, it gets very, very sad. But it also is a good reminder. Yeah, I call mine something different, but I have it too. Yeah. So do you do anything with that unintentional time, David, or is it just kind of public shaming yourself?

I'm aware of it, and I know that I'm going to have some of it. But when I see a week go by and I had three hours of unintentional time, that's not good. You know, and when I have a week that goes by and I have 30 minutes of unintentional time, that's okay. And so I think it's just kind of a metric to be aware of for me. Sure. Yeah. You know, as we're talking about unintentional time and hyperfocus, I can't help but think of the book by Chris Bailey, where he talks about hyperfocus, but then also the flip side of that, which he defines as scatter focus. Brittany, do you try to go back and forth between those two modes, or is just hyperfocus like your default mode and you recognize that,

and you just try to leverage that and point it in the right direction? What is scatter focus? I'm putting words in Chris's mouth at the moment. I would recommend people go back and listen to the episode that he came on and talked about that. But basically, the hyper focus is where you have an article to write. So you're going to hyper focus and you're going to crank out the words in your application of choice, limit all the distractions, notifications, whatever, and then you're going to give yourself permission to go the other way for a while when you get done. And maybe that's where you go do something which maybe is even identified as unintentional

time, but it's not really unintentional. Like he makes the point that if you mean to be watching Netflix for eight hours a day, then watching Netflix for eight hours a day is absolutely a productive use of your time, even though, but that would be like a scatter focus type application. Okay. First, I wanted to address one thing on hyper focus, which was when it's positive, I sat down meant to do this thing and I got really engaged in it. I mean, that's flow, right?

And we can get into that state very easily when we set ourselves up for it. So yeah, there's the Wikipedia accident, but then there's also the flow that's the more intentional one. And yeah, I feel like I'm going to do the things as they come up. It's relaxing in a way. And it's a good, it is a good break. Like when the weather's nice enough, I like to go for a walk on my phone and deal with the stuff that's come up if I have an hour to do that.

And I'm not going in with anything in particular. It's just sort of what's come up in the world and let me take a look at it. And I'll get through emails that way and things like that. So I can be moving, getting some exercise in, and also just addressing what comes up for me. Is there anything else like the walk where you're mode switching before you would go back and hyper focus again that you use tactically to kind of recharge your batteries throughout the course of your workday? Walking definitely helps with charging my batteries. Willpower dependent, yes,

putting down the phone for the walk back is a really good way to do it. It's not always easy. But yes, especially being outside, getting some green time in, moving around, that that's another way that I can recharge it. And I do try to put the phone down for part of it. It's just not always easy. Is the phone the thing that causes you to trip up the most? I mean, you're talking about the downtime stuff and the kind of limits that you put on things and the systems. It sounds like I'm putting words in your mouth at this point, but break away from it at the end of the limits that you put on things and the systems to, it sounds like I'm putting words in your mouth at this point, but like break away from it at the end of the day. But is there anything else that you find yourself getting sucked into? Like TV watching would be one example.

In terms of the devices, it definitely was the computer that was the bigger risk, which is why I had to build such strict rules around when the computer is allowed to happen. It's something about sitting. Back when I actually would go on Facebook, my rule was I had to do it on the phone while walking because after a while, it was a finite time to do that. So at least I was getting walking out of it. But I don't Facebook anymore. So the computer was the bigger risk. Yeah, yeah. The computer was the bigger risk, which is why I set up really strict rules. Phone's not a risk for things like that. But it is best if I can do it while moving because I find there's some good science on this. I have better cognitive flexibility while moving.

It can help with creative, problem-solving, idea generation. I have written whole talks on my phone on the elliptical machine. And it is really recharging to be able to move around like that. And so as long as I am moving, it is less of a danger. In terms of my actual risks, about once a month, I'll go down a Twitter rabbit hole, but I don't go on Twitter all that much. I've hardly watched TV this year. Google's still a bit of a risk, I think, because I want to know something and I'm curious. Can I just step back a little bit on one thing? You mentioned that there is some science behind the idea that walking or moving in cognition, there's a relationship.

And could you explain that further? Because that's something I never knew before. But like myself, anytime I'm on a phone call of any substance, I inevitably pace. I can't sit and do the phone call. I just can't sit and do the phone call. I just can't. And for all these years as a lawyer, I wore, you could literally see in my office, a circle around my desk that I just walked in circles around my desk so many times. Explain that science because that's new to me. Yeah. And it depends on what particular exercise you're looking at, which literature.

There is a really cool book that I can't remember the name of right now that I will look up when we get off this. Oh, dang. It's specifically about ADHD, but it's pulling together a lot of literature on cognitive benefits of movement. He did a great presentation at the conference. But yeah, in terms of the aerobic exercise, it can increase brain derived neurotropic factor, which improves cognition in rats. You can see like actual nerves get repaired if you have enough of this chemical in your nervous system. Yeah. There's also just tests where people will take a break and get on a bike and then go back and do another test. And the ones who did the exercising before the test did better than the ones who did the exercising after the test. And cool things like that. And you will see a difference in different brain types, how much it's beneficial. It will not be the same amount of beneficial for different brain types necessarily, but it does help everyone. It also reduces stress and depression and things like that. Yeah. I want to go down that piece of this a little bit because I know ADHD is a challenge for distraction and nobody's going to be perfect. And even people without ADHD frequently fail at this stuff. What, you know, how do you deal with that on the days that you do end up with a lot of unintentional time or, you know, it just doesn't go the way you planned it? Especially when it goes badly and I'm looking at it in hindsight, there's a few things I'll do.

I'll try to look at what happened clinically, not I'm a terrible person because I did not get this thing done or I'm a terrible person because I wasted all this time. I try to look at really what's happening because there's usually a reason. And sometimes it's environmental. Sometimes it's biological. In a particular case, I was going through some health problems and I didn't realize it at the time. And it really was sapping my energy and seeing that in hindsight. Or I might say, oh, right. Like there's certain podcasts I can't listen to in my morning routine because they are way too cool. And I want to go look this stuff up that they're talking about.

I can't do that while I'm getting ready. That's a podcast that's not allowed then. And I learned that by realizing, how did it take me that long to finish getting ready in the morning? Oh, right. Because I was listening to Matt Geekab and they were talking about their cool things. And then I went and looked at all the cool things. And so I try to make sure that I have the right context and the right situation. I only do fiction at night, for example, because otherwise my brain kind of stays with it all day and it's hard to focus. So I really try to do a postmortem. And the other thing I try to do is forgive myself and not look at it as a complete character flaw, look at it as a challenge that happened. And I'm not happy about the way it went, but what can I do differently? And I try to take each one as information that can help me do better next time. That's really important, but it's also very

difficult. I know myself personally, I am my own worst critic and I beat myself up a lot about the failures that I have. Any tips on showing yourself some love and giving yourself some grace? Different things work for different people. I'm a scientist at heart. What worked for me was reading the research. It never does any good. It might get a tiny benefit in the short run, but in the long run, it will sap your productivity. It will sap your desire to work. It will be a distraction. It will lower the mood. It's not helpful.

And that for me was motivating to try to ditch it because I had used it as a coping mechanism. I had used beating myself up as a way to improve. And in the long run, it burns you out and you can't sustain it. I think we should have like a focused rule where if you start a sentence with, I'm a terrible person for anything related to focus, you just have to stop. I mean, the only time you're allowed to say you're a terrible person is if you drown puppies. If you drown puppies, you're a terrible stop. I mean, the only time you're allowed to say you're a terrible person is if you drown puppies. If you drown puppies, you're a terrible person. But otherwise, you're okay.

We'll call it the puppy rule. Let's call it the puppy rule. I like it. I like it. Now, Brittany, you also have a degree in cognitive neuroscience. This part fascinates me. in cognitive neuroscience. This part fascinates me. You mentioned a little bit about the brain stuff and some of the reactions that happen, stress going up, stuff like that. I actually just read a book called Brainwash by Dr. Perlmutter, and it talked a lot about what

sort of things are triggered in your brain when you get sucked into social media or when you don't exercise enough or when you eat junk all the time. And the whole premise of that book is like you clean up these different areas and then it helps your brain to function better, your neurons fire more cleanly, you don't have all that cortisol building up in your system, less inflammation, all that kind of stuff. I'm curious, as it pertains to productivity, what kind of insights you can give us from the cognitive neuroscience side of this. What are some of the things that you would recommend people do in terms of boosting their productivity? And really, the part that's even more fascinating to me is like, do you have any sort of definitions or descriptions of like why that stuff works from a

neuroscience level? Yeah. And for any scientists out there, it was specifically cognitive neuroscience, which sounds fancy to the rest of the world, but is actually like, no, no, somebody, you know, somebody else dissects mice brains and they're just a neuroscientist and that's hardcore. It just happened to be what I was interested in. Absolutely. Your brain evolved to prioritize your survival. And if it thinks that your survival is in danger, that's what gets prioritized. That means if you're not sleeping enough, if you're not getting your exercise needs met or your dietary needs met or doing the things that your body and your brain need to survive, it's not going to prioritize your higher cognitive functioning.

You don't need it to live. You do need to make sure your body's moving and all those things in case there's a tiger. But usually what we're stressed about now isn't a tiger. It's actually, you know, oh, crap, this deadline. And there are some ways we can counter that, too. But, yeah, if you're really chronically stressed, chronically depressed, you actually can't focus the same. The focus isn't there. Your brain prioritizes sending glucose to the parts of your brain that you need for survival because it thinks that's for later. Sure. Now in the discovery call,

we mentioned a little bit about social media specifically, but I'm curious just in your opinion, how does technology in general, and if you want to speak specifically to social media, that's fine too, but how does it impact the brain's wiring like that? A lot of times we talked about with people programming for engagement, they're helping it take the easy path instead of maybe the healthier path, especially when you get sucked down into it. But also we're accustomed to, maybe not this year, but in-person interactions and all of those different cues you get from different people, the messages that we get on the internet can be more hurtful because

we imagine the intention of another person without actually being able to see their body language. We're also programmed to be kinder when you can see somebody's face. And a lot of those things that are built into social media are not going to be maybe super positive for either your happiness or your productivity because you can just stay in it and it's hard autoplay, now you've made the default behavior doing that thing. Whereas if you can do something like have a timer where it shuts off after a period or not have on autoplay, now all of a sudden the default behavior can be a little bit more what you'd really like to do. Well, let's talk about the endless feeds specifically

because as you were talking about that, I remembered an interview we did with somebody who talked about the infinity pools. And it was interesting to me when we did that interview with Shahid that he talked about not the standard apps that you would think, the social media apps, but he identified Amazon, the Amazon app as an infinity pool for him. Oh, their algorithms are so good. Yeah, yeah. Oh, they are so good. Yeah, yeah. Oh, they're so good. The algorithms, that's the key here, I think, is it's trying to show you the thing

that they think you want to see next. And then like you mentioned, an important point from the last thing that you had just said is the path of least resistance. That's not exactly how you said it, but that's what came to mind for me. Yeah, yeah.

That's a good way to put it. Oh, I am so personally, now that you mentioned it, yeah, that is one of mine, is the Amazon. Their algorithms are better for me personally than anything else on the internet. Better meaning bad. Like, they know if they put up more Star Wars stuff, I will follow it.

And it is dangerous. I have no idea what you're talking about. It is so dangerous. I have no idea what you're talking about. Baby Yoda can never be used for evil. But they know. They know what I want. It's creepy.

You know, I do think, and this is something that comes up on our show, but I think in general, people, it's just because this is all so new, it's kind of hard to become aware of when you dip into an infinity bucket. And, you know, just like Brittany hadn't really thought about Amazon, I think a lot of us haven't really thought that through. And maybe a good exercise for anybody listening to the show would be sit down for five minutes and think about where are the places with your technology that you go into and lose track of time? Find your own infinity pools. And screen time can be really helpful for that.

To know, hey, where did I spend this amount of time? And it can be, if we don't get stuck in the I feel like I'm a terrible person loop, the puppy loop, it can be informative of, oh, that's real data. That's really what I did. The horrifying thing was I made a video about it and I actually was horrified by the result, which I put in the outtake because I'm fun like that. It really was eye-opening when I sat and actually looked at it. Is it simply the amount of time that you would spend in something that is the metric to be watching in terms of this is positive or this is negative? No, it's just the best one we have. Or it's sometimes the only one we have. Yeah, I mean, I play Pokemon Go. I play Pokemon Go with my family. I don't feel any guilt about the time I spend playing Pokemon Go with my family. If I go down a rabbit hole by myself, that's not getting me that social stimulation that it's really benefiting me when I'm doing it with my family. So I don't feel the same about those two metrics. really benefiting me when I'm doing it with my family. So I don't feel the same about those two metrics. Right. Yeah. So another one that comes to mind, I am personally never on Facebook. I think

I still have a profile, but I'm never on there. And almost everybody that I talk to ever since watching The Social Dilemma, I advocate, you got to get off of Facebook. The most common response I get, especially from entrepreneurs, is, well, I got to be on there for business. And it always occurs to me that, yeah, you can use it as justification, but the six hours a day you're spending on Facebook, how much of that is actually business related? So how do you differentiate maybe, and let's just talk about you personally, what sort of things you've done to distinguish like this is a positive use of this thing versus a negative use of this thing? Because time tracking is just going to say you spent this much time in this thing. Right. Yeah. For the time tracking, it's hard to see on screen time how much you spent before the

last week. But this last week, I know when I did an event with my family or not for the Pokemon side. or not for the Pokemon side. The week of WWDC, for example, or during a conference, I am not upset about any of that social media time. I am connecting with people that are involved in a similar thing or doing a similar activity. But if it's some other time

and that wasn't what I meant to do that week, that's different. But there's not a way to categorize it outside of me tracking it myself. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. I was thinking earlier when we were talking about my tracking my unintentional time, I also track the time I play with my dog. And I can tell you spent four hours with my dog last week, you know,

that I tracked playing with my dog. I don't feel bad about that. I think that is a mistake people make as they go down this process, whether you're playing Pokemon or fetch or there are things you do as a human that are part of the experience. And the idea of focus is not to mean that you're working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's instead that you're doing what you want and should be doing at the appropriate times. That's all. Yep, absolutely. I would argue dogs are definite productivity

boosters. Yeah. Yeah, I have a social category in Toggle. And that's not time I was getting work done, but it's time I was honoring my values as a person. Yeah. And I want to feel good about that. Ooh, I like that as a topic. I'm not sure if we had time to go down there, but, uh, how do you, let's just talk about it a little bit. Uh, you, the values things specifically, how do you grade yourself in terms of, does my time align with my values? Where's the line, so I've built in that Pokemon Go habit? I think it would depend on the time. I mean, it is supposed to say, hey, you, you know, you went down this unintentional time rabbit hole thing.

Keep an eye out on that. time rabbit hole thing, keep an eye out on that. And it's supposed to give me that feedback that maybe doesn't make me feel great, but I can use it as information for the future. But also, yeah, I have a separate one for service. Like I'm doing something to benefit somebody else because that feels better than saying like, clean the dishes. And so I prefer to see it that way because, yes, the dishes need a doing, but I'm thinking about my family and how that benefits them in that situation. I don't know. That helps me feel better about it. So these are time tracking categories that you've set up?

I really do. Yeah. Okay. Do you do anything else to codify your values and make sure that they are being displayed through your use of technology? Through technology, I'm not sure. I do believe that things that aren't planned don't happen. And so I do have recurring events with friends. Depending on our current COVID level, we may be meeting in person with masks or we may be meeting over Zoom. But like I have a standing time that is Sunday evening.

That's what I do. I get together with these friends and I plan that in advance because I want to make sure I'm seeing these people in my life one way or the other. And so I can do it with planning. I'm trying to think of values in the apps other than with toggle. I guess in OmniFocus, I have the same categories. Sure. I think the planning with the time is actually a great example of that. I think there's probably a lot of people who would say, my relationships are important to me, but then they get busy and they never get together with friends. That is a very personal example that happened to me last year was the year of rest and relationships for me. And we did the same thing. My wife and I, we built in a system where we would regularly have people over. where we would regularly have people over. We even redesigned our living room to facilitate deep conversations when we had people over. And it was successful until COVID happened. And I attribute that completely to the intentional planning that we did in order to make it happen.

That's beautiful. I bet you're so grateful for that now that it's not an option, but that you did it and you didn't just think about doing it. Absolutely. Yes. That's great. I think it's interesting that, and this is probably a whole show for us at some point, Mike, but there are things that you want to do. There are values that are important to you that don't lend themselves to traditional task management. You know, it's like you want to ship a product. That is something that you can track in a task manager. You want, it's like you want to ship a product. That is something that you can

track in a task manager. You want to become a better friend. That's actually a lot harder. And you don't see metrics. And there's like a lot of people that are, you want to be nerdy about this stuff there. The nerdy tools aren't right there. I think one of the answers is that's a habit builder, not a project builder, but there's a lot more to unpack there. Probably more than we really have time for today. Yeah. I have done one before. I'm now feeling bad that I haven't fixed it recently because it's currently broken, but I had a shortcut that it was before you could have automations and shortcuts. So I was using Launch Center Pro. Anyway, what it would do was find a Simpsons GIF on the internet or GIF, whatever. I don't care.

And it would text it to my friends who would appreciate it separately. But it let them know I was thinking about them. And it would do it like every few days. And yes, I'd send it. And then sometimes we'd have like a funny conversation about it. And I really, I really enjoyed that. And it was a way I used automation to increase relationships that were important to me. I think I need to automate sending David a Mandalorian gif every couple of days and see where that goes.

This is the way. This is where that goes this is the way this is the way this is the way um brinney i know that there are people listening right now that are kind of struggling with these issues as well um where where would you tell people to go if they feel like they're you know dealing with adhd or maybe even just some of the other stuff you said today resonated with them and they want to get some resources or some help. Yeah. It's hard to get formal diagnoses, but most adults don't actually need them to do anything. You only need it legally if you need accommodations for something. But you could still find out, you could still talk to a professional if you want to talk to somebody about if this is a serious problem for you, then there are a lot of

resources online. There's Chad and Ada. And Ada offers support groups and Chad offers other resources for ADHD. Ada is specific to adults and Chad is everyone with the vested interest in ADHD. And if you're looking for an ADHD coach, there is the ADHD Coaches Organization. And that's a good resource if you're feeling like you could use some more one-on-one support. You are also a productivity coach, so don't be shy. Let's talk about your thing, what you do. Yeah. I call myself a productivity technology and ADHD coach in whatever order occurs to me in the moment. Yeah, I love to help people get their stuff done, form new habits, anything like that. For the technology stuff, I have a few videos to help build some of the better technology habits. to help build some of the better technology habits. Cool. We will put links to everything that you do in the show notes so people can follow all that stuff. Is there anywhere specific you'd like to point people?

If you want to go to my website, it's conquer.consulting. And if you want to connect on Twitter for nerdy things, it's ADD Liberator. I do my ADHD coaching on a different account though. All right. Well, we'll make sure to include all of that in the show notes. Thank you, Brittany, so much for coming on. We've been looking for a guest just like you for such a long time, and we're so happy that you could come on and share the story and give us a little bit more information about dealing with ADHD and holding onto your focus. I want to thank our sponsors for today, and that's our friends over at ExpressVPN and Woven.

We are the Focus Podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm. We have a forum over at talk.macpowerusers.com, and you'll find the Focus Podcast right in there. And we'll see you next time.