How to Accomplish Long Term Projects with ADHD

okay so I'm writing a book there's a lot of thoughts in my head about this this episode is sponsored by sansama stick around till the end of the video to learn more about it hello brains I am still here and that is a really really really really big accomplishment because this last year I wrote a book which was an incredibly long-term brain heavy project and I tend to struggle with those one of the reasons why I do well with this channel is because all of my projects are really short term if I want to write a tweet that's out in five minutes right and then I get to like get that immediate feedback of how did that go if I want to write an episode when I first started I had a week to write an episode like start to finish and then it would go up on the channel and it was a very short-term project and those are just fundamentally easier to plan for but I have never actually in retrospect like been successful at a very long term project because I would lose motivation halfway through or I would plan it all out but then like something new and shiny would come up and get distracted so completing long-term projects is is a challenge for me and for most people with ADHD it's a challenge for a number of reasons motivation there's a lot of planning involved planning and prioritizing which can be challenging for ADHD brains there is also time blindness if you think that your homework is going to take you two hours and it actually takes you three hours you can still get it done in a night but if you think a long-term project is going to take you five months or in my case like a year and you misjudge by 50 well now you're at a year and a half and that's not okay long-term projects are just fundamentally more challenging across the board for people with ADHD and it's boring on some level like if you do a project that is that long it's not new anymore it can become tedious and like like I have to do this again like I did this last week and last month and like five months ago I was still working on this thing and so I've had to pull out like all the stops in terms of the tools and strategies that I've used to get this book written I went in with eyes wide open knowing this was going to be a challenge for me I knew that it was going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort and I wanted to make sure that I left myself enough time so I tried to break it up into shorter term projects so I was like I'm gonna write you know one chapter like January 1st and 14th or whatever like two weeks that's one chapter I'll give myself two weeks because I know that the first chapter will probably be a little harder I'll give myself a week to write each chapter after that and so I had like book writing weeks and then I had my production weeks and my CEO weeks I planned out my entire year and there were things that I missed and this is one of the issues that people with ADHD tend to have trouble with with planning projects is there are really important steps that we completely miss one of the steps I missed was um structuring the book so I was going to write a chapter the first couple weeks of January but before I could write a chapter I kind of needed to know like where the book was going this wasn't just an episode for the channel I kind of had to have like a structure for the entire book in my mind so I was immediately off schedule which is something that happens I knew like from the beginning this is just this is going to be hard this is gonna be one of the hardest things that I've ever done in my life but I was like I'll make up for it right like I had that immediate kind of ADHD thought of like like I'm behind schedule well work nights and weekends I was embarrassed to tell my editor that I was off schedule so quickly and so it was just like I'll make it up to her like I'll I'll put in all kinds of really deeply personal stuff to make sure that the book is really good so like it'll make up for the fact that I'm already failing I had to kind of check that I talked to my therapist at the time about that instinct she's like okay or and I was like yeah no I'm not gonna do that but it scared me how quickly I was willing to do the very ADHD thing of like oh shoot I'm behind let me sacrifice everything including myself my health my sleep everything and I was like that's something that like maybe we can get away with for a short-term project but it's not something we can do for a year and expect to like be okay at the end of it and so I had to put some boundaries in place one of those was I'm gonna write the best book that I can without hurting myself like it felt a little hypocritical for me to write this book about like how to ADHD and how to live a life that's in line with your values with the brain that works differently and not be ableist about it while also like doing all the things that were really unhealthy for me and not just not great it seemed like that would somehow be wrong so that was the first thing that I did is I was like okay how much of my life and myself and my health and my willing to sacrifice here and I had to kind of come to an agreement another thing I did well was I built in accountability my editor didn't need to check in with me regularly like you can just write a book and then turn it all in at the end but I knew that that would not go well so I made it so that every time I was working on a chapter I met with my editor on like the Thursday so that I had to show her something every week and have her review it and get that support but also that accountability of making sure that every time I was supposed to be writing on a chapter I actually was I didn't put in buffer time for things to go wrong I should have done that but I did put in buffer time for like going back and re-editing and moving things around I also knew that there was going to be a lot of change in my life I was gonna be moving around and stuff I set cues for myself I I had this little office in in Bramble a virtual office where I could go and if I was sitting in the chair I was writing and so it was like a strong cue so that no matter where I was if I was riding on my laptop or if I was moving or whatever I still had like the same physical space it was like the cue for me to write I think I definitely had to let my brain be a little bit more ADHD and bounce around to parts that it wanted to do um I think for a short-term project I can be like nope this is what we're working on like let's knock it out but on a book it's such a long-term project and there's so many parts to it that I think letting my brain bounce around and work on what it wanted to work on was actually more important and so toward the end instead of going in order of like no this chapter now this chapter I was like okay these are the chapters I have left let me just outline all of those chapters and like brain dump kind of all of them and then when I went to write them which one do I feel like working on because it's such a long-term project What mattered more than like staying exactly on schedule was making sure that I could get it done as efficiently as possible work on the part of this project that your brain is excited about because you're going to be more effective doing it that way what I would do differently the next time I had a long-term project were things that I ended up learning to do later on in the process which was one I would probably spend a little more time brainstorming all of the possible steps that I might need to do instead of the like here's my optimistic version I would have put in time for planning because I expected myself to get right to writing and I kind of ended up having to like plan out the book as I went which is fine but because I didn't have any weeks dedicated to like hey take a look at how things are going and like re-plan everything out like I ended up doing that kind of on the fly or while I was supposed to be writing there were a lot of times where I felt like I was wasting time learning skills that it was clear that I was missing or setting up strategies for myself but I think those things are necessary and I think it's really important that we remember that planning counts as productivity it can be really easy to feel like oh not doing anything I'm supposed to be working on this thing and if I'm organizing or planning or learning a new skill then that's not actively working on it and so like that's a waste of time with this one in particular with like a long-term project making sure that you give yourself permission to plan it out and to set up systems in place and to recognize like if you keep running into the same issue you know if you go watch a YouTube video and you learn how to like format in word or whatever and that's gonna like save you time in the long run do it I'm toward the end of getting this book done and I'm still really nervous about it being as good as I want it to be and perfectionism is another thing to be careful of at least for me with long-term projects is like well I had so long to do it like it should be really good and the truth is like it there's it's a long-term project for a reason it's not so that you can make it amazing and perfect and everything it's it's because there's so many more pieces involved there's so much more work involved the truth is like I did end up leaving some stuff out of my planning um my ADHD got in the way sometimes and like I got bored or I had bad brain days life also happened in the middle of it like other other priorities came up life happens in the middle of long-term projects and there has to be space for that too and so trying to like guard the time that I was writing the book but also like not put my entire life on hold for a freaking year was a challenge and where I landed with it was it was kind of a bit of a compromise like I ended up getting to continue living my life and doing the things that were important to me and I ended up being two months behind schedule on the book so I think the important thing is like if it's a long-term project to communicate um with people but also recognize like just because it's taking you a little longer doesn't mean it's not worth doing and it doesn't mean you failed with ADHD we have to acknowledge like long-term projects really are more difficult for us there's a reason why like one of the common accommodations is like extra time if we're running into brain-based challenges doing the work it's going to take us a little longer and I'm trying to be like really forgiving of myself about that and recognize that's okay it's okay that I didn't stick to that original deadline I'm proud of how I did it I did the work that I could at a pace that was doable for me and sustainable for me consistent effort over time is basically what's required for long-term projects and that's you know it's hard but like I think what I learned is that it can also be inconsistent effort over time and that's okay too there were definitely times where I was writing really effectively for eight hours that day and then there were days where like I barely got anything done but it's okay to have like that effort be inconsistent as long as you consistently show up and put it in it's been a pretty cool experience for me to see that I can I can do something this long term and actually get it done it definitely took like every strategy I had to be able to do it even on the days when I was like this is never gonna happen like why did anybody let me do this which happened a lot all the times that I doubted myself like I just I kept going even when I felt like I was failing I kept going and I did that on my channel a long time ago too which is also you know long term it's a long long term project there was a point where I felt like I was failing at the channel and I got encouragement from the community like keep going and I guess that's what I want to say like you're working on any sort of long-term project whether it's personal or professional or school like if it's important to you if it matters to you keep going and it might not happen on the schedule that you thought it was going to happen because like time management is a thing for us we struggle with that you might get bored and like have days where you just don't want to work on it yeah that's totally normal but if you keep chipping away at it eventually you'll get there and if they're like little victories along the way that you can celebrate if you keep going if you get the accountability if you can get the support that you need there's no reason we can't like a lot of people with ADHD I really like having the flexibility to be able to work from home and like a lot of people with ADHD I have a hard time knowing when I've done enough when there's no one telling me to go home I have one more because I am home which means work can easily spill into nights and weekends until there is no life only work at which point it feels like I'm not exactly working from home I'm homing from work simsama is one of the things that helps me with that if you haven't heard of sunsama it's a system designed to help people mindfully plan their work day and work weeks so they can get stuff done without burning out I can plan out my day pulling tasks in from my email slack Asana my calendar sinceama asks what time I want to be done then I work through my day one time block at a time Focus mode is great for that and this is where it differs from every other system I've ever tried there is a shutdown ritual at the end so even if I'm not done with a project it can be done for the day which not only allows me to enjoy my evening it means I won't accidentally work so late my brain won't turn on the next day since Anna is so ADHD friendly they have a trial period that doesn't require a credit card up front so you can decide whether or not you want to be charged for it after you've tried it out if you'd like to give it a try go to sunsama.com how to ADHD and let me know what you think I'm curious if it helps you have a better work-life balance too that's it for this video let me know in the comments below what your long-term projects are let's support each other let's give each other the support that we need and the encouragement that we need to get through them thank you to my brain Advocates and all my patreon brains for making sure that I have a steady income to like keep paying my team to like manage the channel while I've been uh busy writing the book and allow us to do everything that we do on this channel and continue making content that's accessible to anybody who needs it like subscribe click all the things and I will see you next video bye brains foreign

Channel: How to ADHD

Views: 265,046

Keywords: add, adhd, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, jessica mccabe, how to, attention deficit disorder, mental health, neurodiversity, adult adhd, how to adhd, mental health awareness, projects, long term projects, accomplish, how to do projects, accomplishment, attention deficit, hyperactivity, disorder, mental health education, How to Accomplish Long Term Projects with ADHD

Id: OEHD8B33-wc

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023