165. how to master your FOCUS for success 📖 work/school productivity tips for ADHD, Dyslexia & PMDD! ✍🏼 💻🎧

another day to learn how to be productive. Okay, so this episode is probably gonna be long, and I've been waiting a long time to do this episode, which I think partly that has to do with the fact that I do struggle with ADHD tendencies and neurodivergency, which is perfect really because we're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about how to get productive and focused, especially when you do have ADHD, dyslexia, anything under the neuro

divergent umbrella. And I want to obviously make a disclaimer here. I'm not a doctor, I am not a therapist, I am none of those things. So take all of these tips as you will. I also am actually undiagnosed, but I do know one hundred percent that I do have ADHD tendencies, I like to say tendencies because I'm not really diagnosed, so that's just what I do, Okay. I also know that everything is a spectrum, so the way that I present some of my tendencies might not be

the same as yours. Maybe you need to reach out for help, maybe you need to be on medication. That that is.

I want to kind of discuss a little bit about, like ADHD and how it kind of presents also dyslexia if you don't really know what that is. I want to talk to you about the understanding that I have of these things, at least within myself. And again, I am not a doctor. I am not a therapist. You can do your own research. I've spent a lot of time understanding myself, of course, but also diving into this.

I'm also going to leave resources down below, very scientific podcast episodes if you really want to dive deep and understand from a biological level even but also just ways to educate yourself when it comes to this world of neurodivergence. Really, and of course I want to talk about all the things, or at least as much as I can, that have helped me be successful, because I'll tell you this. We'll do a little backstory. Okay, in school, I really really struggled.

I had d's and f's through the entire school year of elementary and even high school until right at the end of high school. Actually, I was put into classes where you would get extra help, but in turn, a lot of the times being put in different classes where

people had like learning disabilities and stuff. It actually, in my personal opinion, made it worse for me to catch up in the normal classes because I'd be pulled out so much, and I just don't feel like I had the support that I probably needed in order to really understand and learn the things that I needed to do. I'm sure people did the best job that they could,

but I just really struggled in school. Thankfully, I was able to get extra time when it came to doing tests and things like that, but I still wasn't understanding a lot of things that I was being taught because of the way my brain works, especially when it comes to being dyslexic, and some of my ADHD tendencies actually are a result of not learning and moving through this world through the lens of understanding a dyslexic mind, which

I want to kind of talk about that correlation. So I've had a lot of struggles when it comes to learning, retaining information, also just being productive and having focused and hitting goals and doing the things that I've been dying to do all my life. But I've also accomplished so many things, and I want to talk about these things. So you know, am I perfect? No? Have I achieved

this insane amount of success? Maybe some people would think that, But like, there's so many more things that I need to accomplish or I want to accomplish, I should say, but I have accomplished a lot. I have gotten focused in my life, I have been productive, I have fixed my finances. I have changed the way that I view myself and the way that I learn. I feel like I'm a very smart person. I feel like I've learned how to speak, I've learned how to write and read.

so let's talk about some symptoms of dyslexia. Also, some of the wording with these just don't get offended if they like I don't know. Sometimes I see like infographics where it says, uh, warning signs of dyslexia or like warning signs of ADHD, Like it doesn't need to be scary or like warning of anything.

hands on training rather than verbal or written instruction. Sees movement of letters on a paper see again, like that's not what that said. Sees movement of letters on a page, whether reading or writing, reads and rereads without much comprehension. Has difficulty with spelling, has challenges putting thoughts into words. Difficulty with writing or copying. Tends to hold a pen or pencil differently and very tightly. Handwriting is hard to read.

Has difficulty with large or fine motor skills. Has difficulty reading time on a traditional clock, which is so funny actually that I'm reading this now because I always had an issue with that. I could never read traditional clocks, Like I literally look at that thing and be like, what does that mean? I don't know what that means? Somebody explain, which again, doesn't mean you have dyslexia if you don't. If you can't like read time on a clock,

you know what I mean. Another one is has time management problems, tends to be procrastinator, tends to be good at math calculations, but word problems are very difficult, which was really hard for me. Word problems, but math in general was really hard for me as well. Tends to be disorderly or extremely orderly.

of things. I can see how everything connects with each other. But then sometimes it makes you feel like your mind can be very jumbled.

all possibilities at once in a way. But regardless, I'm not going to keep explaining how my brain works, because everyone's brain kind of works differently. But having a brain like this sometimes makes it difficult for you to do a lot of traditional schooling. And also I found, especially even as I got older, though, is some of my ADHD tendon sees the behaviors which I will talk about that I was having was really a result from not

having enough support and structure from my nonlinear brain. The way that I learn and think now that's not the case for everyone. When it comes to ADHD, it's a biological thing. I personally also think having developmental issues ADHD or dyslexia, these type of things, I don't personally believe it's always just always biological. I think a huge role in why a lot of people are like this, and this is my personal opinion and my experience honestly, is due to a lot of childhood trauma. You will see

a big correlation with people who have these tendencies. And what I mean by childhood trauma is it could be big or small trauma, but any sort of dysregulation in your nervous system will result in you not being able to pay attention, you not being able to regulate yourself, so you might look like you're hyperactive. There's so many things that go into why you would have these tendencies.

And to be honest, everyone comes from some sort of dysregulation when it comes to their nervous systems and the way that they deal with stress in their lives. I don't think most schooling systems are supportive of most people, even people who might not have dyslexio or like a lot of ADHD tendencies. I just think that in general, life is stressful. Even as you grow up as an adult, things are very stressful, which makes it difficult for you to be with yourself and slow down and be present

and be focused. So I found another little list and

I will put up on the screen if you're watching on YouTube of things I thought were my personality but we're actually just ADHD symptoms and again to each of their own. There's so many different ways in which you can explain this, but I think a lot of people

will relate to some of these things. One is chronic lateness and time blindness, daydreaming and zoning out, poor impulse control, social butterfly but then burnout, mind wander during conversations, interrupting oversharing, mirroring other people's energy and personality, irritability, hobby hopping, which I feel like everyone can relate to that in some sense.

If you have ADHD, of this like starting something and not finishing at one hundred percent because you have this hyper focus, this hyper attention on this thing and then you kind of like give up on that, which I want to talk about that because I think it's actually a positive trait of having ADHD.

being able to make a decision. Things like that, I believe because it also says lazy, slats unmotivated, which obviously you're not really, It's just you are in freeze mode some of the times, which is a nervous system response of just being so overwhelmed and really in your head and chaotic and not being able to make a decision procrastinating memory problems that tends to be an issue with people who have ADHD, if it's like out of sight, out of minds, like you just don't even remember things

if you don't have it in front of you. I believe that's called object permanence, or the opposite of that, where when you are younger, Actually, let me look this up right now so I can just talk about it quickly. Okay, So having ADHD makes it difficult for you to have object permanence. So object permanence, like I said is basically

just remembering something. So there's a stage of development when you are an infant where let's say you put your child down and the child knows that the mother is outside of the room, versus does not know the mother is outside the room. Like there becomes a stage in which you kind of understand object permanence of I'm in this room and my mom's in the other room. Or you put a toy underneath a blanket, and I know

that that toy underneath the blanket. But when you are really really young, like as an infant, there is a phase of course where you don't actually know that that toys under the blanket. But when you have ADHDS, sometimes when you put the toy into the blanket, you literally like forget it's there, Like you literally just like it's not that you actually don't know it's there. But if it comes to like tasks and things like that, you

just aren't remembering things. More things are hyper focused, which I've kind of already talked about sleep issues, overeating or forgetting to eat, Buying planners and journals and never using them. That's funny. I used to do that all the time. But I'm pretty good at that now, because I know what works for me and what planners work and what don't, which is so key. When you have ADHD, you just

have all these tendencies. It's like you got to know what you're going to use and what doesn't work for you, you know, or the ways that you are going to be able to retain information in ways that just don't work for you. Again, we're going to talk about that. Mood swings and emotional dysregulation, which I want to talk about PMDD in your mental cycle, practicing or replaying arguments in your head at length, fantasizing while engaged in sexual activity. Interesting, I didn't read that one,

but I don't know. I don't think I do that making weird lists like this, I'm dead. The last one says making weird lists like this. So let's also talk

about ADHD in the metro cycle as well. It says here many women have reported that there are days during the month that they feel like their ADHD medication just isn't working as well as it normally does. Now, of course I'm not on medication, but I can see throughout the periods of the month of when these tendencies are harder to manage or when my mood is just regulated more. And on top of that, like my actual ADHD habits of like just not being focused, can't get myself to focus.

I'm really in analysis proalysis. I'm really in this like freeze mode. I can't seem to like make decisions, I don't feel like I'm productive, all that kind of stuff. It happens during my luteal phase, which will basically tell you this right here. Your hormones impact your ADHD symptoms as they ebb and flow, and your symptoms will follow as your estrogen climbs. During your follicular phase, your ability

to focus and be more productive will also climb. So if you don't know, quick side note, we have four phases of our cycle that we go through as women. If you are not on hormonal birth control and you're not pregnant, or you're not in premenopause or metopause, or.

you even have more libido. That's usually kind of like how it works for me. And then you kind of dip down slowly again into your luteal phase, which lasts. There's so many different days, so you can't be rearticular, but let's just average it out and say about two weeks or like fourteen days of being in your liteal phase. For me, my first week of my luteal phase doesn't really feel much different than ovulation or even like follicular.

I kind of feel pretty normal, and then the week before I bleed again is where I'm feeling those PMS symptoms that obviously everyone has different symptoms, but during that time is when I do find it much harder for me to focus and to be motivated because I already

struggle with doing that in the first place. And as it continues to say, may notice your ADHD symptoms worsening the week before your mental phase, or maybe you chalk it up to PMS while the increase in progesterone and decreasing dopamine will throw your executive function through the ringer, which your dopamine receptors are really low, like there's not that much dopamine that you do have if you do

struggle with ADHD. And that's why sometimes when people have ADHD, they will rely on stimulants, whether that is caffeine or obviously scrolling on TikTok or scrolling on social media, or eating sugary foods. Some people will go as far as, of course, like getting into drugs and things like that. There's so many reasons, but some of those things will be raising or dopamine levels, and that's kind of like

what we're always seeking. And so around the time of our PMS symptoms, of course, like dopamine is low, our motivation for life is low, and then we really struggle with also being very very productive. And this also says irritability and forgetfulness. I'm saying that like very weird. But whatever where a little dyslexic care, your emotions become more dysregulated. It's all connected to your cycle, which I do believe.

I do believe that ADHD is definitely connected and gets affected depending on which phase you are in your cycle, So it's just good to understand that. So with a few of those definitions or excuss I want to talk about some of the things that I have learned on my journey to help me stay focused and just like truths about my life in the way that I am

currently right now that has helped me become successful and actually get the things that I want.

these things. And some people might disagree, I am speaking on personal experience. I still have viously have a few of these tendencies and things like that, but not only just like learning how to manage these things, but also you can actually age out of some of these things. It depends on your environment. It depends, of course, like coming back to nervous system regulation, like if you're a highly stressed individual. When I was a child, I was

highly stressed. I didn't understand that there was a lot of things happening in my home life that made it really difficult for me to even sit down and process information. But now in my life, I live a completely different life and I'm a lot more regulated, and I can sit down and be way more focused. I can speak

and read out loud a lot better. Do I still sometimes mess up my words, yeah, but I am not afraid to speak and use my voice and ask questions, which means I end up learning more and I actually progress as an adult. But also I'm not afraid to mess up my words the way that I was when I was younger in the classroom, So I have more practice with being able to speak, and of course, in

turn doing that, I am a better speaker. So with discover a lot about myself when it comes to dyslexia and ADHD, I have had to learn how to reframe the way that I look at myself and the way that I move in this life. And there's a chart that I want to read, and it says ADHD reframes and I think this is very helpful, and then we

can get into some of the tips. So it says, instead of thinking success comes from my consistency, start thinking about how success comes from experimentation and commitment to what works for you. And I think that that has been something that I have learned without even reading this on an infographic. Is understanding that I operate and move differently, and so I need to figure out what works for me,

not trying to do what works for everyone else. That's why sometimes also like linear living, like doing the same thing every single day doesn't work, and I'm not going to get mad at myself because I can't do it the way that everyone else does it. I need to understand what works for me, and I'm going to commit to that process. Another thing, instead of saying anything worth doing is worth doing well, start saying anything worth doing is worth taking messy action on and learning as you go,

which is so important. Sometimes you just have to take action. Another thing, Instead of saying I have a deficit of attention, you can say I regulate attention differently and actually have a surplus that can be channeled for amazing things. The surf plus being when you are hyper focused on something which you can use your benefit. Lastly, it says instead of saying I have too many needs, you can start saying my needs are neutral and I get to design

my life around them. Now, the tips that I'm going to talk about here are ones that I have learned throughout having to go to school and working in nine to five and working on someone else's time. But also they do work with my lifestyle now as an entrepreneur. So some of these things might resonate, some might not.

I understand the struggle sometimes of not being able to always like work around your not neurodivergent brain because there are just systems put in place and like things you have to do that don't really support your brain.

an aim and a focus and a priority list essentially. And if you don't have goals for yourself and you don't have a vision of what you want your future to be, you will get overwhelmed because there's a lot

of things that you could do in this life. And no matter who you are, the most successful people do have a vision and a few goals for themselves, and they also use a planner and they use a calendar, which I think is a great starting point for me and maybe for you, is to have something that you can reference to, meaning you know.

understood about myself is that I am a cyclical being, meaning my mood, my nervous system, my attention is not

always going to be the same every day. And so instead of forcing myself to do the same thing every day, like I've said, I want to learn how to understand how I can support myself on the days where I wake up where my mood is not in the best state, or when I'm not that motivated, or on the flip side, when I am really motivated, how can I continue to capitalize on that energy because I know that I'm not always going to have that energy, and sometimes I do

do more work on the days where I'm really motivated to do it. Like when it comes to podcasting, there are weeks where I am filming back to back to back instead of doing like only Mondays, I'm recording every single Monday, I'm recording. It doesn't work for me because some Mondays just don't work for me. Now, the nature of my job, it requires me to have some brain power,

it requires me to have some motivation. So maybe it depends on what you are doing in your life, but for me, I have found that there are just better ways to utilize my time depending on how my mood is and how my attention is. And I think cycle sinking really helped me be able to understand that I'm a cyclical person and to see how I can still be productive by not being somebody who shows up the same way every single day, because there are gonna be

times in my week or my month. Sorry, I should say that I'm more motivated than not, and I end up getting a lot of work done in that area or that time frame, and then the other weeks maybe i'm you know, I'm getting by or I'm doing smaller tasks. But if you look at it from like a monthly view, I've really been productive and I've gotten all the things that I need to get done.

got really clear on was the way in which I focus and learn to capitalize on that and to just you know, up level my learning. So I'll give you a quick example.

to being dyslexic. But I find that I retain more information when I am watching something visually, so like a podcast like this, where I am not only watching the person speak, but I'm listening to them auditorily, and I sometimes if they have like pop ups and things like that. Sometimes it can be helpful for people who also who have dyslexia. I don't really have any imagery and things like that, but I try my best to get all

my senses really going when it comes to learning. And maybe you could find in your own life when you tend to have the most attention or when you retain the most information. Sometimes it has to do with the learning style, but of course it has to do with your interest, right. If I'm interested in a topic, I could even read about it and be super involved in a book. But I do find in order to help me learn the best way that I can, I usually tend to pick a podcast or watch a YouTube video

versus doing the book thing. Because if I tell myself, oh, just get a book and like that's how you'll learn information, I tend to put it off because I feel the resistance to that because it's not an easy learning process for me. Okay, So a big thing that is important

with people who have any sort of anything is to prioritize action over analyzing. We sometimes get in our heads a lot about all the things that we need to do and which one should we accomplish first, and this that, and I think that in order to know which one you should do first, I think has to be tied to some sort of goal or some sort of like future like vision that you have, or something that's just a priority that you know like needs to get done first.

Like if something is due tomorrow, are you going to read your book that you really want to read because you want to learn new information, or are you going to finish your essay? Which one are you going to do first? It's going to be the essay because it needs to be done tomorrow. So you want to kind

of have that priority list. But at the end of the day, if you find that you are like over analyzing in your in your head, try your best yourself that any action is better than no action, even if that action is not what you planned that you should be doing that day. And there's been a lot of times where I have planned to record a podcast episode, or I plan to do this workout, or I plan to sit down and have this study session, but I wake up and my brain is just it's not the

way that I need it to be. And sometimes I have to push past that. And you know, we can talk about that. But if I get in those modes where I'm really resisting, what I'll end up doing is just self sabotaging. I'll just literally keep pushing things off and procrastinating. So I try and tell myself in the moments where I feel like it's so much resistance, that you know what, you have to let go of the idea of being perfect today. It's clearly not going to

be a podcast day. What can you do to get yourself up and moving instead of being in this stuck freeze energy? And if that means you got to go on a walk when that wasn't planned, you need to go on a walk. Because you going on that walk, We'll get you out of this nervous system state of freeze mode and you be more productive by you doing

something off of your list. Then you trying to force yourself to do the thing that you clearly, for whatever reason, can't get yourself to do, and then you don't end up doing it all day, and instead you just procrastinate. Like you can skip all of the self sabotaging behaviors by simply just deciding to go do the thing that feels a little bit less resistance. But it's hard for us sometimes because then our head are we're like, oh, we have to follow the schedule, or oh we have da.

be productive and you want to be linear. But I promise you, like from personal experience, I have still been very very successful and very productive from taking that action, because just any action is better than no action in my personal opinion.

for yourself is to make it as easy as possible, which means breaking things down into smaller tasks, which can be difficult for people who have ADHD and even a brain like mine, because not only do we think about how overwhelming it could be, but at least for my brain, I'm thinking about all the ways in which I can come at it from different angles, and like, I just cant get very overwhelmed with it, And I understand that taking action is just the most important thing, and one

foot in front of the other and one thing at a time is going to get the job done. And the way you do that is breaking up this huge task that you really want to accomplish into smaller tasks and also of course that allows you to not feel like it's super super daunting. Another tendency with ADHD is that we do a lot of rushing behaviors. So let's say you are in the kitchen and you're making a

meal for yourself. Sometimes, like in your brain, you'll be thinking about how you have to put coconut oil on the pan, and you have to put your toast in the toaster, and then you have to get your avocado to put on your toast, and you have to get your egg, and you have to crack it and d d da da da, Like you're thinking about all those things, but what you actually need to just do first is put the coconut oil on the pan. Put the coconut oil on the pan. Okay, that is done. What is

the next thing. I'm gonna put the egg on the pan. I'm not gonna think about the toast, and I'm not gonna think about the avocado. I understand that that's there. I understand that I need to do that. I understand that that will be a step that I have to take. But is that the step I need to take right now? No, it's not. What is the next step? So sometimes you have to stop yourself and see how you are rushing and getting into your mind and doing all of these

tasks that are not even needed at this point. What is needed is one task at one time. And I can give you another example. When I was writing my book, I had to basically almost every single day touch my book until it was done, because if no one's ever written.

the creative flow of things. This is not always the case, but especially with a book, it can be actually way more difficult for you to get back into the flow of things because you're not motivated and you have to reread all of your work again because you forget because you really suck with remembering things. But of course sometimes

this task like a book, feels very daunting. So what I would do is every day I would be setting a small amount of time to write my book, and of course I would always end up writing a lot more because I got into the flow estate. But I had to at least give myself at least like twenty

minutes out of the day to even touch that. But I still had to make sure that the task itself was attainable for me to actually touch every single day, or I would just find myself pushing it off, because you to push things off that you feel are way too big for yourself. Now it has been shown and

this might not be for everyone, but it has been shown that deadlines and even like time blocking and setting like specific times to do things can be helpful. Now this is more for things that you might want to do on your own time versus like schooling stuff, because with school there's always deadlines, and what you usually tend to do is just leave everything to the last minute and then you like, we'll finish all of it right then. And it's not to say that you can't do that.

Sometimes it depends on what you're working on. But I do find the reason why I used to do that a lot in school was because I was looking at the task itself as very big and no, I would just try and get myself to do that, and that never works. So you want to be very like small and attainable.

Maybe it's because you're like afraid of being seen or you don't want to talk about this that, but a lot of people just don't have like a solid plan of when you want to see certain success within your YouTube channel. And now, obviously you can't necessarily like get too caught up on deadlines, especially when you're doing things outside of like schooling or work, because you never really know, especially with something like.

them that way, I'm consistent. And I did that until I grew And also in my head, I had a projected timeline of being like hopefully in the spring of twenty twenty three, that's when I can leave my job. And that allowed me to kind of like strive towards something and to feel as if there was a deadline, if there was like something that I had to accomplish.

And what ended up happening was my YouTube channel ended up blowing up, and like I think it was like October beginning of October, so it was like actually way quicker than I even thought. But if you have things that you need to get done, it is helpful for you on a daily or like a weekly basis to have those days where you're saying, at twelve o'clock, I am doing studying for one hour, or at one pm when it's lunchtime, I'm going to stop what I'm doing

and I'm going to eat. Or on Saturday, from twelve to three pm, I'm going to go to the coffee shop and I'm going to work on three of my goals that I want to have for my side business.

And now this takes practice because you need to start watching yourself and seeing how many goals or tasks do you actually accomplish throughout a week when you are setting yourself up for the week, and readjust if you need to like, if you're setting a bunch of tasks to do and you only get one done the next week, you should really only be setting yourself up for like three of those tasks, and so that way, at least you know you're gonna get one done and maybe you

will get the next two. But like, why are you giving yourself ten things to do when consistently, every single year you've only been able to do like one thing. The same thing goes with a gym. It's like, why are you setting yourself up by saying that you're gonna start the gym on Monday and you're gonna go seven days a week or five days a week when you literally haven't even been consistent with one day a week

for the entire year. If you can't be consistent at going at the gym one day a week, please reconsider the way that you set goals. You're going a little bit too much. It doesn't mean that you can't get there, but the way you're gonna get there is not from setting yourself up for failure. Now, when it comes to

actually getting in the zone and doing the task at hand. For me, definitely, the way my brain works, I I need a few things set up in my environment for me to really be able to focus. And I listened to a podcast the other day from doctor Huberman. He's talking about how to learn and study. I would suggest listening to it. It is a very long episode, as are all of his, and he was talking about how it's really important when you want to retain information, that

you have a clear focus and to eliminate distractions. It is very hard for you to focus, even as a child, right It's very hard for you to focus in a classroom when everyone else is yelling and screaming. Or for me, it was really hard for me to retain information when the teacher would ask a question and I'm trying to think about the answer, and because I need a little bit more time, I need to think about this answer, but everyone else's hands are going up, and then I

feel rushed, and then there you go. I can't even think. And now I'm thinking that I could never get the answer and that I'm dumb. But I'm not actually dumb, and it's not that I can't get the answer. I needed a second to think. And so you have to know yourself. You need to understand where the best places are going to be for you and your focus. Now, for me, I need a clean environment first and foremost. My environment needs to be clean, whether I'm working at

home or if I'm working at a coffee shop. If I am working at a coffee shop, it can't be too busy or I will not focus. I can't listen to music with lyrics in it because it will distract me. I can't have my phone off of D and D mode because then when as soon as I get a notification, my mind will go to the phone and then I'll just you know, sometimes I'll pick up my phone and I'll be scrolling in this that like, you need dedicated time and dedicated D and D mode truthfully to really

focus and hone in. There's a study method called the Pomadero method which can be very helpful for those who struggle with focus, where it's like a timer. I can leave a few like examples down below, and you have some background music sometimes, but basically it's a timer. It gives you like twenty minutes on and maybe like five minutes as a break, which can be helpful if you

get overwhelmed with sitting for long periods of time. I find that as long as my environment is clean, and I am actually interested in what I'm trying to learn, and I have a clear focus. I can work for long periods of time, but I do think it is important that you still at least have a timeline set for yourself so that you know you're at least hitting

the goal that you want to be hitting. Another thing that Andrew Huberman was saying was when you're about to study or you're about to try to learn information, it's important to sometimes remind yourself, like say it out loud or even think about it in your head, of this information that I'm going to be taking in right now is important. Like you want to like remind yourself that whatever I'm about to do right now is important. You

want to set an intention. Okay, so you're not just like off the whim, like, okay, let's just like start studying. I mean, obviously you can do that if you want, but like setting attentions before you do things with anything, whether it's you going out socially, you going on a first date, you even like smoking weeds sometimes can be helpful for you to set an intention of what you a you want to be doing. Like anything, sometimes it's really important to do that, and I like to when

I'm going on my walk. Sometimes before I leave my house, I think about what do I want this walk to be for me? Do I want it to be this imaginary like experience where I'm like thinking about things that I want to manifest and I want to listen to music, or do I want to take in the peace and quiet and not listen to anything, or do I want to go into study mode? And I do this a lot. I go on walks and I make sure that where

I'm going on a walk is not super populated. I live in Toronto, and I pick one of my podcast episodes that I find I don't have a lot of attention span to be sitting at home and listening to for a long period of time, And I go for a very long walk and I am very intentional with I'm listening to this podcast episode, like this is what this walk is for, is for me to study. So you have to know yourself, you have to know your environments,

and you have to know your tendencies. I feel like I wasn't that self aware sometimes when I was in high school or even in college, of realizing like, okay, I'm actually getting nothing done by meeting my friends at the library and having so many distractions, And maybe that works for some people, but it didn't really work for me. Also, he said in one of the podcast episodes that very highly and successful people who do really well with studying

and retaining information. One of the things that he found with all of these people, like they did studies, is that a lot of these students would study alone and they would do roughly around three to four hours of studying or like focused work, but they would split up that time, so it wasn't like sitting down for four hours straight like they would kind of like break it up.

But the overarching theme was they would actually limit distractions, and they would have goals, and they would have a plan of action, and they would sit down and do what they needed to do. And all of these people also had whatever they were studying or focusing on intentionally focusing on these things all correlated to a bigger picture, so their future, their future goals, a lot of these things tied to their family outcomes or like the way that that was going to provide for the family.

so many things. There's new hobbies that you can pick up, there's new things you can learn this that, and you're gonna really need to say no to a lot of things that do not matter and get clear on what you want to focus on until that thing becomes second nature to you or until you accomplish that thing, and then you can kind of go on to the next thing.

And I think that this is something that I had to be real with myself about, was to stop telling myself that I had to do all of this shit that wasn't really necessary for my growth and that I

didn't need. And I'll give you an example as somebody who works in social media as a content creator, there's many different platforms in which you can put your content out and all of these pts have different uses and it can be helpful to grow your audience, but there's just gonna be things you're going to have to prioritize. And for me, I prioritize my long form content because it's the way that I'm able to express myself, the

way that I want to. So it works for me when it comes to just the way that my brain works and the way that I want to convey a message, it just works that way. I also retain a lot of information through podcasts, so it just it makes the

most sense. There's less resistance, but also it pays off more to do long form than to do short form, and so I have to always prioritize doing my podcast in my YouTube versus short form content like reels, because you know, in the social media space, everyone says, oh, do reels or do tiktoks, Like doing tiktoks can help grow your audience, and da, da da. It's not to

say that it can't. And I do have short form clips of let's say, my podcast, but I can't put that on my priority list because what I will do is I'll burn myself out and or I'll just continue to like kind of push things off and I'll just feel resistance for no reason. There's gonna be things that you have to just tell yourself that are not as

important as others. And when you prioritize things in your life, you will find really good results from those things because you're dialed in more now actually coming back to retaining information,

something that has really helped me as being somebody who's dyslexic, and I wish I learned this earlier, but I was also really afraid and had no confidence in school, so I'm not sure if this would have even really worked for me. But it's helpful to relay information when you

have learned it. And this is like general generic information of course, right, But I think you understand the importance sometimes of when you learn information, whether that's in school or something online, and then you go and tell somebody about it, you are actually retaining that information more by you teaching somebody what you just learned, or like relaying

the information or speaking those things out loud. And some of the things that I was doing, especially on COVID when I didn't have much else to do because I was struggling with hand pain, was I would spend a lot of time listening to podcasts and listening to lectures and also reading books, and then I would retain the information and then I would tell my mom about it, because my mom was living with me for a while, so I would just always be telling her all this stuff,

which also made me want to have a podcast as well. Partly, not just because I retain information and I learned things and I want to share it with people, but because I've obviously I've gone through my own things, but that as well too. And I realized the more I was telling her about things, the more that I was like remembering it as well, which is really helpful for working memory.

But also when I would read books, I would read out loud, which is really really helpful if you do have dyslexia, because you're able to sound out words more. And if you don't understand a word, what I would do is I would go on to Google and I would type it in. I would listen to how it sounded, and then I would say it back out to myself. And that's how I learned how to speak a little bit more articulate, and I was able to also write

recognize words more. And of course just reading in general will make you a smarter person, but reading out loud and slowing things down and really taking my time to digest the information that I just learned is really really helpful. Instead of going through a whole entire book and then throwing it away and then like going on with my day, you're not going to really remember things. So sometimes it's

good to quiz yourself. Sometimes it's good to take things slow when it comes to reading books, especially if it's like self development things. Sometimes it's good to take breaks as well when it comes to studying and give yourself time to retain that information however it looks for you. That's why you need breaks. That's why you need breaks with anything. That's why I need breaks from the podcast as well. It's not that I'm like, when I'm doing

a podcast episode, I'm necessarily learning something new. But what I do is in my own life, I am experiencing life, and there's things that I'm picking up and things that I'm obviously learning that I want to bring to the podcast, but I need some time to live it out. I need some time to like analyze what's happening in my

life and then I bring it to the podcast. So with anything in life, you're gonna need to just give yourself a break and give yourself time to digest and think about the information that you have been learning, or just see life for what it is.

da da da da, all the things that I want to do, and then I will let it sit. Like I won't really take action on any of these things, because I understan myself and I understand that not all these things need to even be translated into real life, and sometimes it just needs to be let out. But I allow myself room to just like have a brain dump.

But also if I am working on a project or I'm working on something, I let myself have the brain dump and like just allow myself to write almost as a rough draft, because that also allows me to not be getting paralyzed in this perfectionist mindset of like thinking that whenever I start the project or whenever I start

the thing, it has to be perfect. I give myself room to be a little bit messy and to come up with a bunch of different ideas and remind myself that this is just a rough draft and like I will actually come and sit down and do the final draft when I think about this a little bit more. And you will find sometimes you have to, like I just said, give yourself time to think and process information. And so sometimes it's good to just not always act on every single idea that you have. And I find

that sometimes you can do that with ADHD. It's like, oh my god, I'm obsessed with this new thing, and i want to start this hobby. Let me start it right now, and me buy everything. Let me get all the material and let me get all the things, and I'm going.

it now, this dope mein kick da da da. But sometimes you just need to make a list of things that you want to buy, but don't actually buy these things, give yourself a few weeks, and then you tend to look back on this list and you're like, I don't want these things, or I don't want to actually do

this hobby. Maybe I want to do something that's adjacent to this hobby, or maybe I want to learn about this topic, but I don't want to like invest all of my time in years of school into this thing because I have an interest, like you want to really give yourself some time, because I have found I have been obsessed with certain topics sometimes and I'm like, oh my god, I want to rebrand my entire life and I want, like my entire channel to be like this, or I want my schooling to be like this. I

want to go back to school for this. And I have learned with age to give myself a lot of time to digest and to discover what I'm actually interested in in a way that is balanced, meaning I'm not wasting all my money, i am not dropping all of my responsibilities for this thing. I'm giving myself to sit

on it. And it doesn't mean you can't explore your passions or your interests, but you want to do it in a way where you're not literally giving up your daily non negotiables in life for this thing that might not actually be anything other than just a hyper fixation on that week, you know what I mean. Now, I tend to do pretty well with a reward system. Kind

of it sounds like when you're like trying to train a dog when I'm saying reward system, but for me, and I don't really set an intention of like, oh, if I study for like one hour today, or if I like, if I do my work day, then I will have a sweet treat. Like I don't do that like every day, and I'm not even that intentional with it. But the way that I move in my life is kind of like, let me prioritize the important things that I need to first, and then I will do the

things that feel more like a reward. So I will prioritize doing my podcast episode before I go lay on my bed and scroll on TikTok, or if I want to go with my friends on the weekend, I will make sure that I do X amount of work this week before I do that, or I will work around my work schedule to have that social life or to have these things because I have goals. Or let's say I want to go to a coffee shop and I want to work and I really want a nice like

little icemocha. Okay, I'm going to go and do that, but I'm going to go and work on some thing as I'm doing that. And does every single thing need to be this like reward system. No, you can treat

yourself just because. But I do find when you have ADHD and you have this issue also with this lack of dopamine, sometimes you're usually always seeking it out right, so like the sweet treat becomes every hour sweet treat, or every single day you need the dopamine kick, or every single day you're gonna allow yourself to do the scrolling or do the whatever.

linked down below. But I do still find sometimes when I'm wanting these rewards, I realize, oh, Okay, my dopamine levels are kind of at a low right now, and engaging in this reward like always getting the coffee and always get the thing, might not be the best thing that I need right now. But if I want that, I am going to first do at least one task or one thing before I go and engage in this behavior, which is not a bad thing. I feel like I have lowered the behaviors that I do that kind of

kick up the dopamine. But I do think it feels a lot better as well when you do a task or you do the thing that you said that.

want me to expand on or if you have any other questions for me in regards to this. But my main takeaway for you guys, honestly is to try to do more things that you have less resistance too and things that actually work for you. And when it comes to creating your dream life, at least for me. I started to realize the things that I was passionate about and the ways in which I work and the type of work that works for me, and I went into that direction. I started to realize having a podcast is

beautiful for somebody like me. I started to realize that mental health is the field that I want to go into, and I had a nine to five. I had to bust my ass and work as a bartender and do things that I didn't want to do. But I realized, Okay, I'm obsessed with psychology, I'm obsessed with online platforms. The way that I learn is through these certain ways. So

I'm going to go in that direction. I'm going to put as much attention in time and work towards these things so this can be more of my reality than the current reality that I have right now. And was it hard to kind of navigate yes, and do it, and I have to push myself a lot. Yes, But now I live a life where I work for myself

and I can do more of this cyclical living. I have a job where I'm able to really hone in on my talents and my wisdom and my skills and bring it to the world, which then, of course allows me to be even more expansive and I'm helping people. So try your best to follow those directions, follow those inspirations, even if you can't do it right now in your life.

Don't forget about those things. There's going to be things that you are very interested in and you keep coming back to, and you could talk about all day, and you could obsess over and you can listen to people like talk about it, and you could even do it for free if you never got paid a day in your life. Go in that direction and build your life closer to that. I promise you you will do yourself a very big service by going in that direction.

I have lived a life of being very frustrated with not being able to live in a very structured way until I understood that's just not how I work in my life, and there's things that I'm going to need to support myself with in different ways in different days. I also understand that my brain is different and it thinks differently, but I would rather that than any other way, honestly, And how do I create a life where it is more supportive of the way that I think? And one

example is having a podcast like this. So I hope some of my tips helped you and maybe made you think a little bit differently. Again, I could go into so many different tips and daily habits, but really, at the end of the day, it's a journey and it's not going to be linear. That's basically all I will say. So I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you in the next one.