All right. Welcome back, guys. Today, I have a guest. We’re going to do something a little bit different than what we’ve been doing on YouTube in the podcast. And we’re going to start doing some coaching on the podcast itself. And Evan has been my first volunteer to get coached. We just met, so I’m going to get some background on Evan.

But Evan, why don’t you go out and introduce yourself? Sure. My name is Evan Whitehead and I am a middle aged man in 2024 and I have been diagnosed with ADHD actually as an adult. I was not diagnosed as a child. However, in retrospect and after obviously working with my my physicians and medical professionals, understanding and realizing that I definitely were distributing traits of ADHD that time, specifically then younger impulsivity, hyperactivity and challenges with executive functioning.

Imagine that. So I just remember growing up, my room was always a mess. Like a tornado ran through it. My desk in school was a mess, I think. Got older and went to school. My locker was always a mess. I was always forgetting homework, not doing homework, you know, those type of things. And the reality was, you during that whole time, I was always in gifted programs and always in advanced advanced placement classes and honors.

So because it didn’t have an educational impact on me, I would have never been flagged right at all. And as you know, one of the criteria for being diagnosed with ADHD is actually above it, above average intelligence, oftentimes in order to create certain accommodations for yourself. Right. You kind of go in a a loop or non-linear way of thinking and doing things.

You have to figure it out and really to do that, it’s pretty takes a lot. So when I was diagnosed that it was actually happened, as I said, though, I was probably approaching 40 and I my background is in education and ironically my undergrad is in special education at this time. Yes. And so and my master’s degree is at leadership and administration.

And then also working with other at risk programs for students, you know, slow learners working with students, especially young students and early childhood programs for students that are at risk for failure in kindergarten. So it’s been my wheelhouse. Ironically, though, even though I explained some of my background to you and also what I do, I myself didn’t think that I had ADHD.

It was one of those things that kind of went over my head, like I missed the boat and I’m the one that actually approves evaluations and also this and works with families to to work with them to understand the needs of their child. And specifically, what I know is that working with family, especially families of color around ADHD and what that means and medication versus non medication and helping them to navigate a lot of things and understanding that I felt I was pretty good about identifying.

But obviously sometimes,

You know, from the outside it would appear that there were some that there would have been something else going on. But all the effects that you and I both know in terms of ADHD were manifesting now as an adult, right? I was feeling that I was depressed and I my self-esteem was low finish projects on time.

And so things such as you know, times, you know, times tables and math facts do for me because they were times and I have additional pressure. So all those things that I remember as a young child started to blue again. And then that’s when I was like, Something’s going on.

Let me check what it is. And then I went to the doctor. My doctor is, Have you ever thought about, you know, you may have ADHD? I’m actually talking about it. And she’s like, are you is that she went through obviously, I knew what she was going to do and she did it and she asked me the questions and and said she said, So what is it that you do again?

I told her. So now I’m feeling low, shameful again and embarrassed it because I should have known. I should’ve known. But she said was refreshing. And then that went to another piece as refreshing. And I’m sure you, with a lot of clients that you work with, was that she said, you must be a really, really, really intelligent guy because your ADHD is so severe that there’s no way that you should have made it to where you are professionally.

And given the severity of your age. And so that’s what kind of made me feel the situation of, Wow, right. And then once she told me and then I went for further assessment diagnosis, that was like a light bulb came to my head like, my God, this is what it is. The whole time people were telling me that that was lazy, right?

I didn’t want put the effort in.

like, you know those does. It really helps. Especially once I started. For me, using medication that was extremely helpful. It was like it helped along with the therapy and coaching. It really helped get to a place where where I needed to go.

So yeah, You mentioned a dual diagnosis earlier. What was the dual diagnosis? so unfortunately, like the the ADHD was the first mental illness diagnosis that I had. That was, that was however, there were other things that were, that were undiagnosed, but because I had grown up in the sense of being resilient, just pushed through, got to make it right.

As I climbed up the professional ladder, as I said, right, the the obstacles and challenges got more difficult and more difficult. Even after I was diagnosed with ADHD, I still went to take on a higher job with more responsibility. And everything was just kind of going, as they say. So because of that, I also because it has them undiagnosed trauma and realize I was self-medicating.

And that’s when it broke. And then I get your treatment program for dual diagnosis, for substance abuse and also for mental illness. And I was diagnosed finally size for my my ADHD.

But I went in with I was also diagnosed with anxiety, depression and also very common. Yes. Yeah. And right because there they exist or they’re like they’re like opposite ends of the same coin. And they manifest differently, especially in men. Oftentimes depression looks like anger and those type of things. And so the other part is that I also was diagnosed with with some PTSD, which made sense, but it wasn’t at the time I was in crisis.

So there were some things that weren’t necessarily addressed. It was working on me to be stable

And there were three themes that consistently came up while I was in treatment. The first one was balance and what I realized was that I was an extremist. It was all or nothing and everything that I whether it was something that was positive right, or whether it was something that was not sustainable and wasn’t healthy. And so that’s also, as you know, part of the ADHD is the hyperfocus and the attention preferred activities.

So things that I was really into having to do it and I’m going to be the best time to do it. However, I didn’t understand like middle path and understand that, you know, you don’t have to do that. And the other thing that I that I learned to understand is that, you know, reality or myth of work life balance does not exist because that’s not life.

Right. My life was moving at the speed of light, and it sounds like it was a lot of achievement, achievement, trying to overachieve, compensating. You know this from the time that I graduated high school until I finished my undergrad degree, it was ten years. So now I have a gap that I feel I have to make up comparing myself to others.

I had enough sick days and vacation that was best that I was able to be on FMLA for three months, both mentally. And you tell us if FMLA is family medical leave at. So you hold on to your job, but you don’t get paid, right? But so you don’t lose your job when you’re sick or like your spouse or, you know, you can have maternity leave or paternity leave.

It allows you to hold onto your job. It is protected by the Federal Government and Labor Act. Well, I had so many days of vacation in sick days that I was able to do that and still get paid my salary, because I think that that’s that’s how that’s a lot of not taking care of yourself and doing things because as an administrator, you get it.

You get 20, 20 vacation days a year, right? Well, you never have time to take 20 vacation days. That’s that’s a lot. That’s you know, that that’s four weeks of vacation. So what happens is you can only carry over so many. So you have to burn them out and kind to get rid of some of the other part is just carryover.

So now I’m carrying over at least ten for every year, but now I’m getting another 20. So every time I do it, it’s accumulated. So. So the breaks are important. And what I realized, I never took the chance to pause and

What made you raise your hand for coaching today? Well, I think one, I saw what you posted and I said, let me look at some in that I’ve never had a specific ADHD coach. I’ve worked therapists and counselors that, you know, they say they work with people, aides, but never specifically. And because, you know, just where I am in terms of a life situation now, things have changed and I have some flexibility in my life.

And I’m also moving into working as a full time consultant and coach. And in doing keynote speaking, I want to see how I can maximize my time in terms of the and effectively. And also the other part is begin to continue to work on and building on the skills I need and reducing the medication that I’m taking, if that makes sense.

Yeah. So yeah. So how are you currently managing your time? So right now, so I what I do, I have calendar and I also make sure that I build in transitions. Typically someone didn’t realize it was very important to do so. And then I also keep a similar work schedule even though I’m working the home as if I were not working.

So I want to make sure that that if I’m not going to schedule something too soon, I’m not going to schedule something too late. I want to keep things going. But I also build in breaks during the day for me to do that. So when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do, I meditate and all I need to do that during the day, I’ll take breaks, do that as well.

I make sure that I continue my physical work and I, I walk 3 to 6 miles a day and I build it into my schedule. But knowing that I have a flex, flexible schedule and I’m not a 9 to 5, I can do that. Well, I know it sounds like it’s going well. So where is the problem, though?

Here? So here’s the problem is that in anticipation of making sure that I continue to monitor what I’m doing right and be aware of that, how can I make sure that that okay, as I said, looking to like reduce medication. Medication works really, really well for me, but also I don’t want to be on beds in the doses that I’m there for for a long period of time.

That’s just for political reasons, you know what I’m saying? So I know that being said, that means there’s going to be a transition in my behavior and what I’ve been doing. So I like to be proactive and be preventative versus being reaction. Okay. And are you tracking like when you are working with your calendar or your planner, are you tracking how your day actually goes?

Does your day always go the way you plan it to go? No, of course not. No, of course not. Right. So actual time is something I would definitely recommend going back. And if you’re using a Google calendar, you can just go back and go, okay, my intention was to do this, but actually I ended up doing this for an hour and a half and starting.

And then that gives you a good snapshot of like the reality of your situation, how things are really going. Are you finding that you’re struggling to like like I heard all good things, but are you struggling to get anything done? Is there something that you’re you’re having a hard time fitting in? I would tell you. So one of my challenges, it’s always been writing.

So I feel like in terms of executive functioning as you know, right, graphic organizers are helpful, but just me, the way I process it takes me a longer time. Even like an email takes me long to craft it because I’m overthinking or making sure I have enough or not enough. And then what? I have to craft something like write a project or create content or curriculum.

It takes me a lot longer to do it and and then what ends up happening is I may procrastinate because it’s not something I want to do. And the next thing I know, I’m in like panic mode. And then now my time is really messed up because instead of working on it now, up later than I should be, and then it starts a cycle.

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Especially with things like that. When when they take a long time, our brain, the next time we go to do that thing is going know Now, last time you made me work on that till I was exhausted. So I’m going to do everything. I am going to throw everything at you I can to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.

So writing for you, does that need to be like a long period of time, or can you write in small chunks? So what you said is, What happens if I write in small chunks? It’s great. But for me to go back to it, it’s like, train of thought, right? like where was I? You know, what typically happens is I get once I’m into something, the hyper focus begins and I don’t want to stop for fear that I’m in this flow and I’m not going to be able to.

You won’t get it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And that’s just a little bit of like learning to trust yourself. Okay. Do you have a specific writing time, like on a daily basis? Like, you mean the time that time of day that I do it or how much? I’m a lot allowing myself to do write? I mean, kind of both.

Like if there is a, if there’s a certain time of day that you’re a better writer, I want you writing during that time, or if you’re just more productive or whatever during that time. But what I’m wondering is if we put writing on your calendar every day or five days a week or whatever for an hour and you’re leaving yourself good notes from where you left off so that you know how to get back into that, because that is a problem for a lot of my clients.

And and that’s what you need to do. You need to leave yourself clues on what’s going to happen next. Okay? Even if it’s just, you know, it doesn’t have to be anything perfectly crafted. Just like my next thought was that I would write something about this. Okay. And so leaving yourself clues, doing it a little bit every day when you go to write, do you find yourself doing other things instead?

Is that what your procrastination looks like? If Well, you know what it is? Is that because I have so many ideas and then I sing them into like sequencing becomes a problem. So I have these ideas that are great nuggets, right? And I’m like, yeah, but that sounds great in this piece. And then if I put it with that, it’ll go good.

So what ends up is, is that it almost looks like puzzle pieces. Okay, it’s been sequential, but, but it is good work. So what happens is out. I’ll work that way and then I’ll come back to it and then I’ll rearrange it into the sequential order. That sounds good, because I’ll I’ll say to myself that I’ll speak it out loud, and it’s kind of like a given.

No, what a way to explain it. But that’s the way that I write and I’ll process things. Okay? And sounds like that’s working for you. Well, it I guess kind of what you said before, right about blocking out the time, keeping it and then taking the notes. I don’t usually take good notes to include and myself. So when that ends up happening is I’ll remember, I’m like, I had this great idea and I know I just did like four pages on it, or I have handwritten notes of like two pages.

And I know it goes with this book, Where the heck is it? And we’re right in what it is which which, you know, which Google doc did I actually call it? Because this day I was thinking, I’m going to call it my Google doc for this particular thing, this and then because I don’t leave the clues, I go back and let’s call it something different the next day knowing that that happened to me.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so, yes, doing that writing every day is going to help your brain trust you, okay? That you’re not going to hyper fixate on this thing and that’s the other thing is like be secure with your stopping time. Be secure is not the right word, but be deliberate with it, with your stopping time. Like when it’s time to stop, it’s time to stop.

Like, okay, so you can trust yourself the next time. The other thing is if you’re procrastinating, getting started, a very good way to do that is just to tell yourself, Look, you only have to work on this for 10 minutes or whatever that is for you, where you’re like, I can do that, no problem. Okay. Like, what would that what would that be for you?

Like, if you’re really not wanting to work on a piece of writing, what would be like nothing for you to sit down and do. But this. Okay, 5 minutes. It’s different for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And so do you promise yourself, like you only have to do 5 minutes, and if you get started and you feel good about it, you can keep going when the 5 minutes is over, If you feel like it’s absolute drudgery, then you can stop at the 5 minutes and then maybe give yourself another time later in the day where you do it again.

Okay. I just going to do 5 minutes. We’re just I tell that that’s one of my getting started things that I do with clients. So maximizing your time, how else does this need to happen? You know, I just want to make sure that the time is quality and productive and I guess understanding and being okay, what that looks like for me, right?

So old me helps me a lot, right? It’s okay. I mean, if you are all going to write 10 minutes per day, but that 10 minutes is okay, and if you feel like it, it’s all right. But don’t feel like I only go for 10 minutes a day and now I’m not productive. You know what I mean? That’s kind of the internal struggle that that that I have, knowing that, like once again, it’s kind of like, you know, wanting to be a high achiever and like, want to be perfection, you know, be a perfectionist, where they when the hyper focus comes, they’re like everything has to be right.

And being okay to say, you know, I guess giving myself permission to be okay with 5 minutes of writing per day is still considered productive. Yeah, and tracking that actual time, just going back to that concept allows you to look over your day and look and go, Look at everything I got done. That’s that’s an important key to is like reviewing your day and really patting yourself on the back for the things that you did.

That’s another thing concept that I wanted to bring up that we learned in coaching is B-minus work. Perfectionists don’t like to hear about it, but B-minus work is doing something good enough instead of working on it extra until it’s perfect. And like, what do they say? There’s a saying about about that, like, done done is better than perfect or something like that.

But B-minus work. I think, in giving yourself like this is how much time I’m going to work on this. And maybe even if it’s like you mentioned speaking, if you’re writing a speech or something like that, I’m going to give myself a week to get this done and then that’s it. It has to be done at the week and breaking that backwards going, okay, how many hours of writing am I going to need to do in order to get this speech done and working that into your calendar as well?

What other productivity type things do you need? I think I’m a not a done a lot I think aging the time so that that so that then I do I don’t have some productivity issues so like I said do you see how long things take like do you know how long it takes to write a speech. Do you know how long it takes?

We’re harping on writing, but do you know how long it takes to do the things you do in a day? No. Okay. No, I do not do a good job of monitoring and self-monitoring, even though I could be doing it as self-management. I do not do a good job of self management even though I know I should. And even what you what you what you are saying about understanding.

Okay. Like even you need to like track. Like it’s a time study basically. You’re telling me I know what it. Yeah. And I like these, these like, it’s a little bit blurry but I like these visual timers. We probably worked with students with them, and I like you can get them on Amazon, but they’re super helpful. Like when you’re going to start a task, just turn that timer on for however long you think the task is going to take.

And then because you’re tracking your time, you’re going to go back and go, okay, actually it took this long and now, you know, it takes me this long to write a speech. It takes me this long to for me, it was simple things like I would think, gosh, the dishes take forever like that. That was one of my things.

The dishes take forever. Laundry takes forever. And because I was thinking that, you know, we talks about like our thoughts create our feelings which make us take or not take certain actions, and then we get the results. We get. But because I was thinking it was taking forever, I would avoid doing the task. And then when I finally did do the task, it took forever.

And so I proved myself right. But just timing things. I found out that the dishes actually took 6 minutes. Like, that’s not forever. My brain was just lying to me. And I wonder with some of your task timing them, there’s also a law. I can’t remember the name of the law off the top of my head, but it says that we will expand projects to the amount of time that we give them.

And so if you give yourself 5 hours, for example, to write a speech, it’s going to take 5 hours. If you give yourself 4 hours to write speech, you’re going to get it done in 4 hours. Like it’s it’s not always exactly that. True. But don’t give yourself more time than you need for projects, because then it will expand to that amount of time.

And that could be for everything. Makes sense. All right, what else? Got a little bit more time? Do you have any ideas about, like, organizational methods in terms of, like, organizing, like, tangible items, whether it’s, you know, whether it’s like books or just because I find myself, I’m still very old school and I and I like I still like sensory in terms of, like paper and pencil and paper and pen, you know, And I what do you do you have any systems for organizing things like that?

Like notebooks and books. And you’re like, give me an example. What’s happening now? Like you just finding that they’re everywhere. What’s what’s the problem for every no matter what? If I say, okay, I’m going to make every thing today, right? And in my green, my green is going to be what I utilize for for this particular thing. I never it it gets away.

And then next thing you know, I’m just like I’m just having stuff everywhere. But I in terms of like notes it and notebooks and books and those type of things. Yeah, yeah. I would make sure that these things have a home I like. That’s what I like to say, that they have to have a home and what you really want to work towards is if you have misplaced that thing, there are really only two places that that thing could be because there are only two places that you live or that you put that thing right.

So if it’s your books, for example, like where is their home? If you’re taking them around the house to read them, then maybe you’re reading only in the same place all the time or something like that. What? Like it? There’s not the problem that they’re getting kind of strung all over the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With every item that you misplace, it should get to that point where there are only two places they should be, and that is practice of you having to put things back where they go.

And at first it seems ridiculous. You feel like a child, right? You’re like, I, why do I have to clean up my space all the time? But as you do it more and more you’ll get. And as you create homes for places like this is the only place this thing goes. For example, my keys. Never lose my keys.

Why? Because they’re on the hook or they are in my purse and there’s no other place that they would be ever same with. Like my phone, my phone. Less so it’s kind of like with your books. It can get left left places, but it’s not getting like stuck down in the crack of the couch or, you know, anything like that.

But yeah, creating homes. Do you have ideas for like, like where is your books? Not have a home? Are they just, like, stacked up on your desk or what? Because as we talked before, like, I have a great idea and I remember something it up with a book out, but I don’t put it back. That’s like but you know, I mean, like once again, like I’m beginning I need to create clues so I know so that I’m just not leaving that book or that or that binder or whatever it is.

Like notebook somewhere, because I think I’m going to go, but I don’t go back to or to like weeks. And I realize, that’s, that’s what I was looking for. Yeah, yeah. I would have like one central place where you’re dumping all your ideas. I, for example, mine. And you’ll have your own method, whether it’s just one single notebook that everything goes in or if you want a digital system like I love Trello.

Some people love notion, things like that. It’s something searchable where you can dump ideas. I have a Trello board called Mande’s Brain and that is where all of my fantastic ideas get dumped And I have a list of like content creation ideas. And so having one central place where I call it offload, where you can offload these ideas, there is another thought I had for you, but I missed it.

What else were we were we discussing? I don’t know, but something just came up. Yeah, tell me. Educate me with ADHD, not remembrance, but. But so this is something where it happens and I think it goes back to what you’re saying. It it triggered me to remember that that having a space, oftentimes I feel myself doing double work because I’ll take notes on something or write something and then transfer it electronically because I don’t have a dumping space to write like, let me just write this down.

And then and then I’m like, okay, now I got to go back to this, put on a Google doc or something like that. So now I’m doing now I’m doing double entry and now that’s creating longer time for me to get something done than it should. Yeah, Yeah. And so if it might be more efficient for you to just go digitally immediately but more and have something that like maybe you have it on your desktop and you have it on your phone and it’s easily accessible that way too.

What was that though? It syncs between the laughs. Yeah. For example, like I was talking about that Trello board, I have a little widget on my phone where I can go right into that Trello board and just put things on my phone or I can do that on the computer. But I will say you don’t want to do it to excess and maybe this would be like part of like a closing the end of your day kind of process.

But I do the same thing. Like I will make little notes about things and then I just gather them all up and I digitize them. And for me, it’s not a problem. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but if it is a problem for you, then definitely just go in immediately. Digital would be a good thing. You had a thought.

Go ahead. I do have a thought. I think what it is is that I don’t have it as part of a part of my day. My agenda of this is how I’m going to close out my day is transferring everything that I did by hand into digital. And so you’re trying to like, fit it in the cracks and then I just do it manually.

And then what happens is I’m like, okay, now you got to do everything that I ever did, and then I’m back into that side instead of having it as my daily schedule. And that would make because I’m not doing it all at once, I’m just doing it in increments and it’s like chunking it together. So it comes together.

Yeah. And you triggered my, my thing that I lost earlier, which was and you’ll appreciate this being an education. I like to tell people to be like they’re they’re a kindergarten teacher. Like, what do kindergarten teachers do? After we finish an activity? We work, we clean up. And so after you finish your work day, you’re going to clean up your station, you’re going to transfer your notes, you’re going to check and see what you’re going to be doing the next day.

You’re going to take care of put things back where they need to go and take care of that. So it’s a reset, basically. Are you familiar with the clean up song? I am, yes. I actually full time served kindergarten for almost a year. I just as it does that make remember clean up song. Yeah. That you’re doing okay?

Yeah. Love it. Okay. Well, that is about our time. I hope you got some nuggets here and I love you sharing your story. That’s going to be helpful to other people. So I really appreciate you being on here, being vulnerable, being open. And I will let you know when this comes out. All right. Thank you so much. Peace and blessings.

Have a good day taking. Take care. Bye bye.