This is not specifically an ADHD topic. Though our particular wiring may make it more relevant. I don’t know. I’ve been a person with ADHD and mostly work ADHD people. And, this will be a one week hiatus from the BATDL topics. My mom has untreatable COPD, despite never being a smoker or around second hand smoke much at all. If you don’t know, COPD basically makes it so that your lungs don’t work. She has deteriorated quite a bit in the last six months. And she started home hospice last week. My wife, kids, and I have said goodbye. But there could be a month left. The not knowing is really hard. The last week has been very difficult. My attention has been dreadful, largely because my mood has been awful. I’m not a big cryer. I’m more of a “handle logistics now and be classically sad later” kind of guy. So, I’m not wandering around weeping. But I’m not myself. I has taken me all week to feel like I have enough attention to sit down and bang out some blog posts. And, I couldn’t even go through my inbox Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It has also been difficult being 100% present with my clients. I haven’t told any of my clients because I don’t want to make their sessions about me. And, I don’t think that they would notice how much harder I have to work to be present. But everything has been a challenge. This leads me to the lesson that I learned when I was in my early/mid 20’s. I was working for a brilliant but very, very tough chef named Carmen at a restaurant in the financial district called The Vault. It was an intense and gruelling job on the best days. One day,…

You have to have your BATDL with you all the time. The ADHD brain is a wild, exciting, and unpredictable thing. And, it is absolutely bananas living inside one. Even effectively medicated, I am hardly neurotypical. No ADHDer is. We can amuse and befuddle our closest people with the tangents and leaps that our superbrains make. And it is all logical to us. You just don’t see/hear the 14 thoughts between the last thing you said and the perfectly reasonable (but wildly out of left field to the rest of the world) thing I said next. I point all this out to illustrate that we are not always in charge of what’s going on between our ears. And, as magical as that maelstrom can be, it doesn’t always help us be productive and efficient. Which is why it is essental that we capture our important task immediately in the moment. If we don’t, our brain with be three steps ahead and that task might be lost for quite a while. Also, when that thought does come back, grab it and capture it right away. You might remember a task when you are in the shower. You might remember a task on the subway. You might remember a task in bed at night. You might remember a task while folding laundry. And, there is, literally, no time like to present to capture that task on your BATDL. The secret is that you don’t actually have to remember anything. Really. Well, hardly anything. You just have to remember to capture your task and check your BATDL. If you can do that, nothing will slip through the cracks. How awesome will that be? Rhetorical question. But, I’m going to answer it. It’s completely awesome. I spent many years on this planet wondering what…

Your list must be a master list. It is likely that you will have a Badass work To Do List (wBATDL) also. But that is for that 9-5 time frame/sphere of your life. But for all the other task that you need to complete, it is essential to have a single, master list. Why? The simple answer is: working memory. You might be familiar with the ADHD trope of the guy with 100 Post-it notes. But you probably have never asked yourself if all those Post-it notes are actually helping that guy. Well, probably not that much. Working memory is the ability to hold things in our mind AND manipulate them. This is a notorious weakness of ADHDers. So, it can be very hard for us to hold multiple tasks in our mind while prioritizing them. But having all of your tasks in one place allows you to move those tasks around, reprioritize them without having to actually hold them all in ours minds. So, don’t make sub lists, daily lists, long term lists, etc. Just put all your task on one master BATDL and it will make your life so much easier. Just don’t get overwhelmed by having everything in one place. Remember, those task exist. They exist whether or not you capture them on the list. But having them all on one BATDL is you best bet for doing them and doing them in a timely and efficient fashion. This is a summary of the first chapter of my upcoming book: 10 Steps to a Badass To Do List: Task management for the ADHD brain.

I’ve taken quite a bit of time off from this blog to work on my first book, 10 Step to a Badass To Do List, task management for the ADHD brain. I am currently editing and putting some final touches on the 4th draft. I will be sending it out to readers after that. As I am in the home stretch, I thought I would get back to posting here regularly. And, since I’ve never posted anything about the 10 Steps, I thought it would be a good time to post some concepts, takeaways, and maybe even some excerpts from the current draft. I may mix in some posts on other topics, as I am prone to philosophical musings on many topics. But, to start, here are the 10 Steps. Of course, I generally take almost a full session to teach this to my clients. There’s a lot of nuance. I will be posting more of the details. And, eventually, you’ll be able to buy my book. Standard disclaimer: When posting my thoughts here, I feel that content is far more important than perfection. I try to practice what I preach that ‘done’ is better than ‘not done…perfectly.’ So, unlike with my book, I don’t edit much, if at all. I hope you can look past any small imperfections and find the content useful.

If you have read my last few posts, you know that I’m taking a break from the blog to focus on finishing my first book: 10 Steps To A Badass To Do List. Happy to say I’m more than half way through an still hold out hope that I will finish by the end of the summer. But I would like to try to post some quick tidbits on here more often. I thought it would be helpful to share what’s going on with my day today. My youngest is at camp for another 24 hours, my oldest is at a friend’s house all day, and my wife is working a wedding. I’m got about 5 1/2 hours all to myself at this present moment. I also have much to do. Yet, there isn’t anything that is “ride or die” at this moment. That gives me a certain amount of anxiety about where to start. The answer is: ANYWHERE! Just work my list and make sure I am doing something productive and that I do get the biggest priorities done at some point today. But it doesn’t matter if I deal with the kids pill containers, my inbox, the weekly food prep, my workout, editing my book, or our semi-flooded basement first. The only mistake is to do nothing or engage in avoidance. And, I decided to type this up and share when I realized that I was coaching myself by saying the phrase in bold to myself. Hopefully you can learn to do the same in the same situation. Now I’m off to crush my list… in no particular order!

I have been radio silent for quite a bit. Sorry. I’ve been prioritizing self care, family, and enjoying my life. And, I’ve been putting my creative energy toward finishing my first book, hopefully by the end of the summer. But, if you read me at all, you know I don’t like to let it go when I read an ADHD related article that pisses me off. Case in point, this article on ADDitude by the illustrious Ned Hallowell: Wasn’t expecting that big rectangle when I copied and pasted the URL. Oh, well. Here’s my response. “Though I agree with most of, if not all of these tips, I would suggest them to any partner of any person. And, I think the fundamental premise of the article is pretty insulting. As and ADHD coach, I spend quite a bit of time being a cheerleader for my clients because so many people in their lives have treated them as “less than” over the years. Often this includes their spouse(s.) Trying to give relationship advice to ADHD adults starting with the premise that being married to them is “more work,” is not only untrue, but is a blanket statement of “less than-ness” that is fundamentally harmful. Well treated/ well managed ADHD doesn’t have to be a disruptive 3rd party in your marriage. And as long as EITHER party believes that to be true, the marriage will never be a true partnership. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Whether they are related to ADHD or not doesn’t change the quantity or quality of the work you need to put in to your marriage, just the specifics. Again, all the suggestions are great… for everyone. But if you start out believing that one partner is “the burden” in the relationship, they’re not likely to be…