This week we're kicking off a new series on the basics of ADHD management, and why sometimes the best thing we can do when we're struggling isn't to find something new, but to go back to the fundamentals. One of the things I've found after years of making this podcast is that knowing all these ADHD strategies doesn't mean I'm always going to remember to use them. And sometimes I find myself looking for a new solution when what I really need is to return to something that's already worked for me.
So in this episode, we're starting with one of the most important fundamentals: understanding our ADHD and how it affects the way we approach everyday tasks. We'll look at how identifying what's actually making something difficult can help us find better solutions, why knowing what works isn't always enough to get us to follow through, and how we can revisit old strategies that we might have stopped using along the way and might work for us now
If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/320
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
I've been on and off in a karate class for a while now. Still a white belt; consistency isn't always one of my strong suits. But one of the things I've managed to pick up is that the basics are what everything else is built off of. The basic forward punch is a fundamental move that you can build off of, and it or one of its variations is part of nearly every kata.
My sensei isn't starting us off here because he thinks we can't do more, but rather because it's the foundation that we build everything else from. If I want to get better, I have to practice the basics. I'm sure that there are some people who would prefer to skip ahead and do the more exciting stuff.
Why spend all that time practicing the same punch over and over again when there are so many other things that you could be learning? Fun things like how to kick over your head. That's not really something I can do over forty, but it certainly does sound exciting, you know, in a painful kind of way.
And I definitely get that. I'm someone who likes learning new things. I'm someone who gets excited about mastering all-new skills and moving on to the next challenge. But you also just can't skip the fundamentals. Even when you start learning more advanced techniques, you don't stop using them. In fact, you might even end up using them more, which unsurprisingly brings us back to ADHD.
One of the curses of having done this podcast for so long is that sometimes I feel like I shouldn't still need the basics of ADHD management, that somehow I've moved beyond them. I have not. I've been talking about this stuff for years. Surely at this point, I should have figured it all out. But even if I had mastered everything there is to ADHD management—and let me be clear here again, I absolutely have not—I'd still need to use the basics every day.
So when I'm struggling, when I'm falling behind or finding myself doing things that aren't aligned with what I want to be doing, it's worth checking in whether I'm still using those fundamentals before I go looking for something fancy and new. Because sometimes that's just me seeking novelty. But also, I've got a bad memory.
Something, something ADHD, who knows? But that does mean that I do need to be reminded sometimes of what those fundamentals are. Sure, it's a bit hilarious when I find myself opening up old episodes to remind myself of stuff that I already know, stuff that I've already talked about.
But that's how it goes sometimes. And so that's what we're going to be exploring over the next few episodes here: the basics of managing our ADHD, why they matter, and how we can make them a regular part of our lives. Today, we're starting off with one of the most fundamental things we can do: understanding what we're actually dealing with.
I start every episode of this podcast with the line, "I'm William Curb, and I have ADHD." And you would think that would make it pretty easy for me to remember that I have ADHD. But one of the lessons I have to keep working on is remembering what having ADHD actually means for how I approach my life.
Because when I understand what's making something difficult, I can start asking better questions about what to do. For example, let's say I'm having trouble doing the dishes. There are so many dishes in the sink I know I need to get done. I'd prefer to have clean dishes and be able to use my sink, and yet I'm not doing them.
I could look at this situation and decide, well, I'm just being lazy. And if that's my explanation, then what's the solution? Obviously, I need to stop being lazy. I need to just do it. Great, problem solved. Except that doesn't actually tell me anything useful. How exactly am I supposed to stop being lazy? Am I just supposed to magically develop more willpower?
Should I get angry and use that as my fill-in for willpower? Sometimes I can manage to push through and get the dishes done that way. But if this is a recurring problem, telling myself to try harder isn't giving me much to work with. On the other hand, if I recognize that I'm struggling with executive function, now we have some possibilities.
Maybe I'm having trouble with task initiation. I know what I need to do, but getting started is difficult. Maybe there's something about the task that's feeling overwhelming. I did say the sink was completely full. Maybe I'm mentally treating "do the dishes" as one big task when it's actually a collection of smaller tasks.
Or maybe I'm in the middle of something else, and the real challenge is transitioning away from that other activity. Those aren't all the same problem, and they're not necessarily going to have the same solution. Let's say the issue really is getting started. Maybe I could make the first step smaller, make it easier to get into the process.
Instead of deciding that I need to clean the entire kitchen, I could start with putting away three dishes. Or I could tell myself I'm just going to clean out the sink so that it's ready to wash things later. There's a chance that once I get started, I'll decide to keep going. But we do have to be a little careful here because sometimes we try to use that small-step strategy as a trick.
We tell ourselves we're only gonna do three dishes, but secretly we expect ourselves to do all of them. And if we don't, well, then we failed, which is kind of missing the point of making the task smaller. If the goal was three dishes, then the goal is three dishes, and doing three dishes counts as success.
But perhaps the problem wasn't getting started. Maybe it's just that the task was incredibly boring. It's dishes. It's not the most exciting thing. Maybe I can start listening to a podcast while I'm doing them, or music, or whatever's going to help bring up my energy levels so that doing the dishes isn't quite so boring.
And not every task needs to be entertaining. But when we know boredom is part of the problem, it just gives us another way to approach it. And we also don't want to assume that every difficulty is caused by ADHD. Sometimes I just don't want to do the dishes because I'm tired. Sometimes it's because I've taken on too much and genuinely need some rest.
Sometimes I might be avoiding them because I've got something else going on emotionally. And sometimes I just don't want to do the dishes; I just want to do something else. Not every moment of resistance needs an ADHD explanation. But understanding my ADHD helps me ask whether there's something specific making the task more difficult rather than simply deciding that the problem is me.
And this is where we run into another part of understanding ADHD that's easy to overlook. Because even when we know what's making something difficult and we know what strategies might help, that doesn't mean we're always going to use them or even want to use them.
There's a difference between knowing what we need to do and then actually being able to do it. I know that I need to put something on my calendar if I want to remember it. I know that checking my calendar in the morning helps me understand what my day is going to look like, and I know that breaking down a project into smaller steps makes it easier to get started.
And yet, I can still forget to use those strategies, or I can find myself resisting doing them, which seems a little ridiculous, doesn't it? I should just be able to do the things that I know are going to help my brain because I know they're going to help. Why would I not do them? But that logic skips over the whole problem we're trying to address.
If ADHD can interfere with remembering intentions, initiating tasks, and directing attention, why would we expect it to magically stop interfering when the task is using an ADHD management skill or strategy?
The strategy is still something we have to remember to do. It's still something that we have to start, and it's still something we have to fit into the life we're actually living right now. And that last part matters because sometimes a strategy that used to work for us isn't gonna fit into our current circumstances.
Maybe our schedule has changed. Maybe we're dealing with more responsibilities. Maybe we don't have the same amount of energy available, or maybe my problem has changed in some other way that I'm not accounting for. And sometimes the problem is just that we've forgotten to take our ADHD into account when deciding how we want to do something.
I'll look at how someone else is approaching a task and think, "Well, that seems like a perfectly reasonable way to do it." And maybe it is for them. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for me. And there's a difference here between saying, "I can't do this because I have ADHD," and saying, "Because I have ADHD, I may need to approach this differently."
Now, I want to be clear here. That doesn't mean that there aren't genuine limitations that come with ADHD or that every problem has some clever workaround just waiting to be discovered.
But it does mean that we can give ourselves permission to use approaches that fit our needs, even when they're not how we think things are supposed to be done. Sometimes that means returning to a strategy that we've already used before, or changing that strategy into something that works for us now.
For example, one of the tools I've used in the past for writing these episodes is voice-to-text. I find it's an incredibly helpful way to get my thoughts out, and it can make it easier to start writing, especially when the alternative is sitting in front of a blank document trying to figure out exactly how I want to phrase something. But it's been a while since I've used it.
I hadn't decided it was a terrible strategy. My workflow had just changed, and I got out of the habit, and I forgot how much I liked using it. But I actually used it to write this episode. So well done, me. Gold star. And it's legitimately helping. I didn't need to find an entirely new writing system.
I just needed to remember something that had already worked for me and try using it again. And there are plenty of other tools and strategies in my life that I've stopped using for one reason or another. Maybe some of those are worth revisiting and some of them perhaps not.
Perhaps they still work just as well as they used to or perhaps they need some adjustments to fit how I'm working my life now. But I don't necessarily need to start from scratch, which brings us back to karate.
When I'm practicing a forward punch, I'm not learning a new technique every time. I'm working on something I already know how to do. But knowing how to throw a punch doesn't mean I've mastered it. Far from it. White belt, remember? To get better, I still have to look at my stance, my balance, where I'm directing my movement, and all the little details that make the technique work properly.
I can practice it today, and I definitely will still need to practice it tomorrow and the day after that. Even a year from now, I'll probably be practicing that same move. And in fact, that's kind of the point. And I think we should approach our ADHD management in much the same way. There's a difference between knowing the fundamentals and consistently practicing them, and there's a difference between needing a reminder and starting over.
When I go back to using those basic techniques, I'm not going backwards. I'm returning to something useful, and sometimes that's exactly what progress looks like.
This Episode's Top Tips:
Going back to basics isn't going backward. The fundamentals are the foundation of ADHD management, and they're something we need to keep practicing no matter how long we've been managing our ADHD. Returning to a strategy you already know isn't starting over; it's reinforcing something that helps.
Knowing a strategy isn't the same as being able to use it. It's not just about finding strategies that work in theory, but finding ones that work for our brains and that we'll actually use. Even the most effective tool isn't going to help much if we can't reliably put it into practice.
Just because you've stopped using a tool doesn't mean it stopped being useful. Sometimes we abandon strategies because our circumstances change, and sometimes we simply fall out of the habit of using them. Understanding why we stopped can help us figure out whether we need to make adjustments or simply start using something that's already worked for us.