October is ADHD Awareness Month, and to recognize that we are featuring a guest post from ADHD coach Nancy Snell. Nancy often collaborates with us on patient work and has been an adult ADHD coach in NYC for many years, working with people on productivity and executive function.
For well over a decade, I’ve had the good fortune to work with overwhelmed, overworked, distressed and distracted business people who are stuck in endless loops of accumulation without relief. The people I work with are unique in their strengths and personalities, but all alike in their desire to succeed and the fear of the obstacle course that stretches out before them every day.
Throughout this time, I’ve learned so much about what plagues them, what causes them pain. By listening to their stories and working to implement solutions, I’ve been able to learn about what’s really going on underneath the perpetual mound of unfinished paperwork, email overload, incessant daily interruptions and overloaded circuits.
They say that fear of being perceived as weak or incompetent is what keeps them awake at night. Their fires are stoked by anxiety where passion once was. They become panicky, frustrated, exhausted, and often physically ill. They feel they can’t ever finish anything, they have to keep postponing major decisions, they get sidetracked by the tide of smaller jobs, and they never have that feeling of completeness that signals the end of a job well done.
It’s exhausting just reading this, isn’t it?
I see so many of us today, drowning underneath a tsunami of information, up against a wall of unfinished tasks. Before technology became a ubiquitous part of our lives, there was a beginning and end to the workday. Imagine such a thing! Now, feeling distracted and overburdened is the experience of the average worker, or as I like to say: “You don’t have to be ADD to feel like it these days.”
If this strikes a chord with you, I want to make something very clear up front: You are not alone.
Freddie, a real estate executive I once helped, came to me flabbergasted by his workload. He was qualified, confident, and a wonderful employee. But he had absolutely no idea where to begin when he sat down for the day. He told me that each day was like the worst day of his life, as the pile of tasks mounted higher and higher, and he could do nothing to stop it. He told me that he spends hours every night answering emails and texts that accumulate during the day instead of eating dinner with his family or going on vacation. He said he felt his life slipping away before his eyes, all because he felt obliged to his dizzying inbox.
The fact of the matter is that there’s only so much time in the day, and each of us is only one person. Time is a finite commodity. We have only one mind, one mouth, and two hands. We cannot, no matter how hard we try, be all things to all people or operate as a one-size-fits-all crisis manager in every situation. In the business world, being perceived as weak, slow, or incompetent is never a good thing. The problem is not that you are any of these things– but if, for example, you are spending 70% of an average day in meetings that other people schedule, it is quite challenging to get anything done.
So what can we do?
I believe that it is incumbent upon each of us individually to find our own solutions. Unfortunately, the tsunami isn’t stopping anytime soon as far as I can see.
So we have to get really good at:
– Saying NO in order to manage incessant interruptions
– Communicating effectively with colleagues and bosses
– Managing my calendar and coordinating it with my To Do list
– Learning how to prioritize
– Planning and making decisions every day about what I can get done vs. what I think I can get done
Simple, yes. Always easy, no.
My hope is that you’ll be able to not only see the light at the end of the tunnel, but know that it exists and move towards it.
If you identify with any of this or know anyone who might, feel free to reach out for a complimentary conversation. I am known for focused results and can promise that you will be glad you took the action! You don’t have to live with the stress of the tsunami for one more day unless, of course, you choose to.
Take a simple action now that you have been putting off. Just one. It might change everything.
