How To Prioritize With ADHD

Transcript (00:00): Find it hard to prioritize when everything seems important, but there’s only one of you and just not enough time. You’ve tuned into Scattered Focused, done Re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD, A podcast for ADHD adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins and I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey to re-Imagining Productivity with A DHD, so you can get what is important to you done without trying to do it like everyone else. So you wonder what you should be working on and also why is it so hard for you to make these decisions like other ADHD adults? You may find this hard for two common reasons. One reason is that it can feel like everything on your plate is equally important. (00:54): You may also feel as though it all needs to be done right now, if not yesterday. Obviously, this can make it hard to choose what to do each day and contributes to your feelings of overwhelm and stress. One of the ways you can turn this around is by becoming an essentialist. Becoming an essentialist will help you be more confident. You are doing what is most meaningful to you each day because you will be doing more of what is in alignment with your values and goals rather than just busy work ready to dive in and learn how to do this. First, your executive functioning skill challenges because of your ADHD can get in your way of being able to prioritize to get better. You’ll need to upgrade those that are getting in your way right now. One of these is decision-making skills. If you struggle with this, you’ll need to work on it now so you can get better at differentiating between what to work on now, what to defer or what to drop entirely. (01:57): Also, for many adults with ADHD, there is now and not now time blindness. This can contribute to your tendency to operate too much in the present at the expense of working toward your future goals. So you may end up doing what feels most urgent right now, but not necessarily what is most important. Trying to prioritize in your head is another reason. You may find it hard to make these decisions. You’re ADHD brain just isn’t equipped to hold, sort and process all this information to come to a decision. Another reason prioritizing can be so difficult for you is that there’s so much you’re interested in doing. So even though you have a lot on your plate right now, it may be hard for you to resist the next shiny penny that comes along. It’s also possible you’re finding it hard to prioritize because you’re being asked to do too much, so it feels like you are drinking from a fire hose and you can’t turn off the spigot because you’re not in control. (03:04): The last reason prioritizing may be a challenge is because you are not using your values and goals to guide you. It may be because you’re not clear on what these are, or you just don’t know how to use them as a guide, just as there are many reasons contributing to your challenges with prioritizing. There are also many reasons you might want to get on top of this. First, when you don’t have a sense of your priorities, you may never be quite confident you are spending your time in the right way. So while working on one task, you might wonder whether you should be doing something else and this contributes to your stress. You may be more stressed because you end up jumping from task to task, but you don’t close the loop and maybe not do you...