Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The ADHD Skills Lab

You start an email, remember a purchase, open another tab, and suddenly five tasks are each 20 percent done. For adults with ADHD, working memory problems don't necessarily disappear with age.

Skye Waterson and Robert Waterson unpack a 2013 meta-analysis of 38 studies on working memory in adults with ADHD. The researchers expected older adults to perform better. Instead, the review found adults with ADHD performed moderately worse on both verbal and visual working memory tasks, with age not changing the overall picture.

Then Skye and Robert get practical: how to stop relying on your head to hold everything. They cover one central place for tasks, low-friction capture, redundant reminders, recording tools, and physical cues you can't ignore.

The goal isn't to remember harder. It's to build a system that means you don't have to.

Want Skye's prioritization filter? DM me “prioritize” and she'll send it to you for free.

What We Cover:

• What 38 studies reveal about working memory in adults with ADHD, and why age didn't change the picture
• Why every task needs one central, ranked location instead of scattered notes
• How redundant reminders and physical cues help when working memory fails
• Why a five-minute post-meeting dictation can catch what AI summaries miss

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria gets talked about constantly in ADHD spaces, but there isn't much research behind it yet.

In this Research Recap, Skye and Will unpack a small study that tried to measure what happens when people with ADHD symptoms experience social exclusion. Using a deliberately unfair ball-tossing game, researchers compared how rejected participants said they felt with changes in their heart rate and blood pressure.

The results didn't line up the way researchers expected. This isn't proof that RSD is or isn't real. It's a look at what one study found, where the results got messy, and why measuring rejection sensitivity is more complicated than it sounds.

Want more of Will's work? Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

What We Cover:

• How the Cyberball task was used to create social exclusion in a lab setting
• Why participants reported feeling excluded while the physiological data didn't show the expected response
• The unexpected drop in blood pressure and what researchers thought might explain it
• Why self-reported rejection sensitivity didn't line up neatly with ADHD measures
• How the study's small, self-selected sample limits what we can conclude
• Why this paper raises useful questions without settling whether RSD is real

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You hired help. You still find yourself taking things back on.

Kara Kushnir built A Work of Heart Counseling and Wellness from a part-time practice into a fifteen-provider team. But growing the team meant learning that she couldn't keep doing everything herself.

In this episode, Kara talks about the temptation to say yes to everything, the burnout that follows, and how she learned to delegate, ask for help, and build a team she trusts enough to tell her no.

What We Cover

• Why trying to do everything yourself is a direct route to burnout
• Why Kara still catches herself taking on work she should delegate
• How saying yes to too much led to overwhelm and depletion
• Why asking for help and knowing who to ask are skills you can build
• How transparency about her weaknesses changed the relationship with her team
• Why knowing what you're not good at is part of building a healthier business

Connect with Kara:

• A Work of Heart Counseling
• Instagram: A Work of Art Counseling
• Instagram: Taking Cara

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

ADHD treatment works. But does it keep working the same way eight years later?

In this Research Recap, Skye and Will dig into the MTA study, one of the largest and most influential ADHD treatment studies ever conducted, and what researchers found when they followed the same kids over eight years.

They unpack why the strong early treatment gains had disappeared by year eight, why medication use dropped dramatically over time, and the surprising finding that even the group still taking medication didn't maintain the same early advantage.

They also look at what happens as kids move into middle school, when organizational demands increase and strategies that worked before may no longer be enough.

Importantly, they separate what the research actually tells us from what it still can't explain.

Want more of Will's work? Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

What We Cover:

• Why the MTA study's early treatment gains had disappeared by year eight
• Why only about a third of participants were still using medication
• What the research does and doesn't tell us about stopping medication
• Why changing life demands can require changing ADHD strategies
• What the middle school research suggests about symptoms at home versus school
• Why "pills don't teach skills" matters when thinking about long-term ADHD management

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You know what you want in the future. You still can't make yourself do the boring task today.

Skye and Robbie break down the goal setting system Skye actually uses, adapted from Dan Martell's framework. It works backward from a 25-year vision to one specific goal this year, then down to one daily non-negotiable that makes that goal inevitable.

They also get into what happens when you miss a day, why trying to focus on five goals at once backfires, and how immediate rewards can make the thing you keep avoiding easier to actually do.

What We Cover:

• The full process from a 25-year vision to a daily non-negotiable
• Why your yearly goal needs to be specific and measurable
• How to choose the one priority that matters most right now
• Why five new non-negotiables at once can become zero
• How immediate rewards and recovering from missed days keep goals alive

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You know what needs doing. You have the ideas. So why is actually finishing the thing so hard?

Jason Chatfield has written and drawn the syndicated comic strip Ginger Meggs for sixteen years, writes for The New Yorker, and built a career across cartooning, comedy, and writing. But he learned he cannot rely on his brain to generate ideas and execute them at the same time.

Instead, Jason built physical systems that separate thinking from doing: external deadlines, index cards, a wall calendar, batching, and pairing difficult tasks with things he actually enjoys.

In this episode, Jason breaks down the practical systems he uses to turn ideas into finished work without relying on willpower.

What We Cover:

• Why Jason stopped planning and executing in the same block
• The index card system that makes finished work visible
• How external deadlines give his ADHD brain structure
• Why his wall calendar beats another productivity app
• How he pairs difficult tasks with things he enjoys
• The first-thing, last-thing routine that separates planning from doing
• Why it took three ADHD diagnoses before he believed it

Connect With Jason Chatfield

https://www.jasonchatfield.com/

https://www.instagram.com/newyorkcartoons/

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You built the business because you were good at the work. Nobody warned you that promoting it might be harder than doing it.

New research on neurodivergent entrepreneurs found that maintaining a social media profile was the most commonly reported self-employment challenge. Ahead of work-life balance, unpredictability, and financial pressures.

In this episode, Skye and Robert unpack why social media has become such a difficult part of running a business, what else neurodivergent entrepreneurs say they struggle with, and the support and habits they find most helpful.

What We Cover:

• Why maintaining a social media profile topped the list of challenges
• How work-life balance, unpredictability, and marketing compared
• Why peer support, professional networks, and mentorship matter
• What entrepreneurs said helped their wellbeing, from movement and sleep to boundaries

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Carlos Gutierrez spent 25 years rising from sales representative to CEO of Kellogg, then served as U.S. Commerce Secretary. He did it all without knowing he had ADHD.

When he was diagnosed later in life, Carlos began looking back at his career differently. The disorganization, procrastination and impulsivity he had treated as personal flaws finally had a name. So did some of the traits that helped him succeed, including intense hyperfocus, intuition and an ability to connect with people.

In this conversation, Carlos and Skye unpack the role ADHD played at the highest levels of his career, from the projects he could not stop thinking about to the support that helped him perform at his best. They also talk honestly about the cost of that drive, particularly the work that followed him home and the family time he lost along the way.

It is a fascinating look at what ADHD can actually look like at the top, and what Carlos understands about himself now that he wishes he had known earlier.

What We Cover

• Why Carlos saw his ADHD traits as personal flaws for decades
• How hyperfocus became one of his biggest career advantages
• Why the right support and structure changed how he performed
• The impact his intense focus on work had on his family life
• How ADHD shaped his intuition, empathy and leadership style
• What changed when Carlos finally learned he had ADHD

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Waking up exhausted after eight hours of sleep isn't just bad luck. In this Research Recap, Skye and Will break down a meta-analysis on hay fever and ADHD, including the finding that people with allergies are significantly more likely to also meet the criteria for ADHD. They talk through how swollen sinuses can disrupt sleep, how that can show up as brain fog and forgetfulness, and why the researchers still can't say which condition comes first. Want more of Will's work? Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

What We Cover:

• The 1.83x risk finding from 18 studies covering 4.2 million people
• Why poor sleep from allergies can look a lot like ADHD symptoms
• The inflammation theory behind the connection
• Why correlation isn't causation, and why the finding still matters
• What researchers still don't know about the ADHD–allergy link

Want more of Will's work? Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You hit a growth ceiling and your first instinct is to change what you're doing, not fix how you're doing it.

Matt Verlaque has coached founders past a million in revenue and sees the same pattern over and over: something works, the novelty wears off, growth stalls, and suddenly a new marketing channel, AI tool, or strategy looks like the answer.

Matt and Skye unpack the “pivot chaser” trap, how to tell when a strategy is genuinely broken versus when you've simply gotten bored of executing it. They also dig into AI mania, the dopamine hit of learning and building new things, and why constantly chasing the next skill can quietly keep you from scaling.

Because as Matt puts it: “Beginners don't scale companies.”

What We Cover

• How to tell whether you have a strategy problem or an execution problem
• Why ADHD founders abandon the thing that was actually driving their growth
• Why skill acquisition feels productive even when it stalls your company
• The difference between “can I build this?” and “should I build this?”
• Why constantly chasing novelty keeps you a beginner

Connect With Matt Verlaque

https://mattverlaque.com/

Instagram: @mattverlaque

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Tom Reber built successful businesses while privately believing he wasn't smart enough to fight for his own ideas. That belief followed him from childhood special ed into business ownership, where he went bankrupt once and later sold another business for far less than he believed it was worth.

Tom, founder of The Contractor Fight and a former Marine, explains where that belief came from, how it affected the decisions he made, and what changed when he finally stopped confusing not knowing something with being stupid.

What We Cover:

• Why Tom stopped fighting for decisions he knew were right
• How childhood special ed shaped his self-image for decades
• The conversation with his mom that changed how he understood his past
• The bankruptcy and business buyout he connects to that belief
• How he learned to trust his own judgment again
• Why he now sees his ADHD focus as an advantage
• What "strong you, strong home, strong business" means in practice

Connect With Tom Reber

https://thecontractorfight.com/

https://www.instagram.com/fightwithtom/?hl=en

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You spent real money on a system nobody uses.

Skye and Robert Waterson see this problem regularly working as fractional COOs with ADHD business owners. The owner gets excited about a new system, the team agrees to the change, and a few weeks later everyone quietly slips back into the old way of doing things.

The problem usually isn’t the software. It’s how the change was handled.

In this episode, Skye and Robert break down the six phases they use to move a team onto better systems without losing people halfway through. It starts with getting genuine buy-in before anything gets built, then prototyping the process, slowing down the rollout, and documenting it once it actually works.

What We Cover:

• Why telling your team to “just use it” creates quiet noncompliance
• Why previous failed software changes make teams reluctant to try again
• Getting real buy-in before building the new system
• Why a rough prototype can beat an expensive polished platform
• How ADHD founders can move faster than their team can realistically follow
• Knowing when to stop adding features and let the new process settle
• Why documentation matters once the system is actually working

If you run a business with ADHD and keep finding yourself at the centre of the systems, decisions, and implementation, this one will probably feel familiar.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Most people don't struggle to put themselves out there because they lack ideas. They struggle because they're afraid of what people will think once they see the real version of them.
So they post the safe version instead. The version nobody remembers.

Chris Do, Emmy-winning designer and founder of The Futur, has spent more than 20 years helping creatives build businesses by becoming more visible. He believes a brand people care about isn't built on sharper positioning. It's built on being willing to be seen. That means getting comfortable with the parts of yourself you've been editing out.
He explains why fear of judgment (not a lack of confidence) is what keeps people editing, how radical self-acceptance changes what you're willing to say publicly, and the simple exercise he uses to help people work through it.
If you're a creator, founder, or anyone building in public who has overthought a post, softened an opinion, or caught yourself over-explaining, this episode gives you a practical place to start.
What We Cover

• Why fear of judgment, not low confidence, is what keeps your work generic
• How hidden fear leaks out as over-explaining and nervous energy
• Chris's radical self-acceptance exercise, step by step
• Why confidence is built through exposure, not positive thinking
• What changes in how people respond once you let yourself be seen accurately

Listen to the full conversation, then try Chris's exercise and tell me what came up in the comments.
Connect With Chris Do
Instagram @thechrisdo
YouTube @ChrisDo/@thefutur

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Most ADHD interventions only work if you actually stick with them. So what happens when the intervention is something your brain actually wants to do?

Skye joins Will to unpack a systematic review of 22 studies on virtual reality interventions for ADHD. They look at surprisingly high adherence rates, what the research suggests about attention and working memory, and whether improvements inside VR actually carry over into everyday life.

They also dig into the different ways VR is being used, from cognitive games and movement-based training to simulated real-world scenarios, plus where the evidence is still too thin to draw firm conclusions.

Want more of Will's work? Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

What We Cover:

• Why adherence rates of 85 percent or higher caught their attention
• Three different ways researchers are using VR for ADHD
• What the studies suggest about attention and working memory
• Why VR is being studied alongside existing ADHD treatments
• The big question of whether improvements transfer to real life
• Reported side effects and the limitations of the current research

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You’re guessing how long things take.

That guess feels reasonable.

It’s just wrong, over and over again.

In the last episode, we broke down why ADHD time blindness happens. This one is about what to do about it.

Because the real problem isn’t planning. It’s relying on estimation at all.

In this episode, Skye and Robert walk through how to replace your internal clock with systems that actually hold up in real work:

• why you can’t “get better” at estimating time
• how to use past projects instead of guessing
• how teams quietly adjust for you (and why that creates tension)
• why buffers and “extra time” don’t work
• how to build timelines that don’t collapse halfway through

If you’re tired of missing deadlines you genuinely thought were realistic, this will show you what’s actually going wrong, and what works instead.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You can be successful on paper and still feel stuck.

In this episode, Skye talks with entrepreneur and investor Kassidy Warren about leaving the corporate “safe path,” taking real risks, and the identity shift required to stop playing small. They unpack rejection, procrastination, reinvesting before results, and what it actually means to turn pro — especially with an ADHD brain.

If you’ve built something stable but know you’re capable of more, this one will hit.

What we cover:

• The hidden cost of corporate stability and “golden handcuffs”
• Why procrastination is fear in disguise
• How to handle rejection without shrinking
• The mindset shift from amateur to professional
• Acting before you feel ready — and why waiting keeps you stuck

Connect with Kassidy Warren

Kassidy Warren is the host of the For Your Own Good podcast, where he shares practical, direct conversations about business growth, leadership, and building companies that actually work.

If this episode resonated, you can follow Kassidy and explore more of his work here:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kassidy.warren
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KassidyWarren
• For Your Own Good on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1UfWzqSpuL685ReFGnIrgB

He regularly shares insights for operators and founders who want to move from chaos to clarity without fluff or hype.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Click the link below to see which founder type you are!

https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/adhd-founder-types


You keep solving the same business problems, but they keep coming back in different forms.

After reviewing more than a dozen research episodes on ADHD founder struggles, four recurring founder patterns emerged: the Last Minute Hero, the Overwhelmed Architect, the Vision Caster, and the Pivot Chaser.

These aren't random quirks. They're recurring ways ADHD can show up as a business grows. More importantly, all four point back to the same underlying challenge: there isn't an operations layer between the founder and the day-to-day business.

In this episode, Skye and Robbie break down each founder type, why it happens, how it affects your team, and the practical operational changes that can reduce the friction.

What We Cover

• Why the Last Minute Hero trains their team to expect emergencies
• What overwhelms the Overwhelmed Architect
• Why the Vision Caster struggles to turn ideas into execution through other people
• What drives the Pivot Chaser to keep changing direction
• The operational gap connecting all four founder types
• Which founder type you relate to most and what to do next

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've read the books. You've tried to think your way into a better mindset. But the changes never seem to stick.

In this episode, Mick Hawes shares why he believes that's because mindset isn't something you change directly. Drawing on more than 35 years coaching business owners in high-complexity industries like custom home building, he explains why your mindset is the result of the systems, environment, habits, language, and other external influences shaping your daily life.

Skye and Mick explore why changing your environment often works better than relying on motivation, how to make decisions based on principle instead of emotion, and the practical daily ritual Mick uses to build momentum without waiting to "feel like it."

What We Cover

• Why trying to change your thinking directly often doesn't work
• How your environment affects focus and decision-making
• Why making decisions on principle beats making them on emotion
• Purpose statements vs. job descriptions for building better teams
• Mick's four-step Personal Success Ritual
• The "Dream Catcher" exercise for breaking self-imposed limitations
• Why your input ultimately determines your output

Connect With Mick Hawes

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheToolShedPodcast
Website https://www.thesiteshed.com/

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You start medication or therapy, things get better, and then a few years later the old struggles creep back in. You wonder if you did something wrong.

This week, Skye Waterson is joined by Will Curb from Hacking Your ADHD for a Research Recap on the MTA study, the largest and most influential ADHD treatment trial ever conducted. Nearly 580 children were followed for 8 years to understand what happened after the initial treatment period.

Together, Skye and Will unpack why the early differences between medication, behavioral therapy, combined treatment, and community care had largely disappeared by year 8. This is not a conversation about whether medication works. It is about what happens when ADHD is treated as a one time solution instead of an ongoing condition that changes as life becomes more demanding.

What You'll Learn:

• Why the MTA study followed nearly 580 children across four treatment approaches
• Why medication use dropped to about one third of participants by year 8
• Why even participants who remained on medication lost their early advantage
• Why ADHD is better understood as a condition that requires sustained management
• What "pills don't teach skills" really means for long term ADHD management

Learn more about Will and Hacking Your ADHD:

https://hackingyouradhd.com

https://www.youtube.com/@HackingYourADHD

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've probably heard it before:

"Just start."

"You'll feel better once you begin."

"Get rid of all distractions."

If you have ADHD, you've probably also discovered that this advice often doesn't work.

In this episode, Skye and Robbie unpack the dopamine transfer deficit theory and explore why ADHD brains may not receive the same anticipatory motivation signal that helps neurotypical brains get started. They explain why so much conventional productivity advice misses the mark, why dopamine detox can backfire, and how Skye developed The Dopamine Dial to work with ADHD motivation instead of against it.

Originally inspired by Skye's most-read Substack article, this episode expands on the research, the practical framework, and what you can do instead of relying on willpower.

What You'll Learn

• Why "just start" often fails for ADHD
• The dopamine transfer deficit theory explained simply
• Why removing stimulation can make starting harder
• Why rewarding the beginning of a task matters more than rewarding the end
• How to use The Dopamine Dial to get moving without relying on motivation

Read the original Substack article:

https://unconventionalorganization.substack.com/p/an-adhd-academics-answer-to-the-dopamine

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

If you've ever tried to overhaul your finances in one weekend only to abandon the system a few days later, you're not alone. According to Diane Gardner, that's exactly why most financial systems fail for ADHD business owners.

Diane Gardner is a Mastery-Level Profit First Professional, certified tax strategist, certified cash flow strategist, and bestselling author who helps home service business owners build stronger cash flow and lasting profitability.

In this conversation with Skye, Diane explains why profit isn't something that's left over—it's something you intentionally build. They explore why ADHD business owners often approach money with an all-or-nothing mindset, how tiny 1% changes outperform complete financial overhauls, and why consistency beats motivation every time.

What We Cover

• Why revenue minus expenses equals profit keeps business owners living on what's left
• The simple 1% starting point that makes Profit First sustainable
• How to build a "profit muscle" instead of relying on willpower
• Why all-or-nothing thinking causes so many financial systems to fail
• The accountability habits that keep a money system working long after motivation fades
• Common profit leaks Diane sees in home service businesses

Connect With Diane Gardner

🌐 https://profitcoach4you.com

💼 https://linkedin.com/in/dianeberrethgardner

🎙️ Profitable Home Services Podcast (Apple Podcasts)

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Why does your ADHD feel manageable in one situation but overwhelming in another?

In this episode, Skye and Robbie explore a little-known 1997 review paper that challenged the traditional view of ADHD. Instead of seeing ADHD traits as fixed deficits, the authors argued that traits like attention shifting, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can become strengths or struggles depending on the environment.

Together, they unpack what the research actually says, why these ideas never became mainstream, and what they might mean for entrepreneurs and business owners navigating today's fast-changing world.

What You'll Learn

• Why ADHD can feel completely different from one environment to another
• The evolutionary theory behind attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity
• What "response-ready" environments are—and why they matter
• Why school and entrepreneurship reward different ways of thinking
• Where the paper is compelling, and where the authors acknowledge its limitations

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You meet someone, become instant best friends, and a few months later they're gone. Then it happens again.

Most ADHD advice focuses on productivity, but Caroline Maguire believes we're missing something just as important: friendship. Caroline is a certified ADHD coach and the author of Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults.

In this conversation, Skye and Caroline explore why ADHD brains often rush into friendships, why traditional friendship advice falls flat, and how to build relationships that actually last without burning yourself out.

You'll walk away with a practical way to spot unhealthy friendship patterns before they cost you another connection.

What We Cover

• Why the impulsive friendship cycle happens
• Why traditional friendship advice doesn't work for ADHD adults
• The Ice Cream Scoop Method for balanced give-and-take
• How to spot one-sided friendships early
• Why interest-based activities make building friendships easier
• How to slow a friendship down without ending it

Connect With Caroline Maguire

• https://carolinemaguireauthor.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/authorcarolinem/?hl=en

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Meditation is one of the most common ADHD recommendations—but what does the research actually say?

In this Research Recap, Skye Waterson and William Curb examine two studies on mindfulness and ADHD. The first explores an 8-week mindfulness program for primary school children, while the second compares mindfulness with structured psychoeducation for adults with ADHD.

The children's study found improvements in attention and psychological wellbeing. The adult study found something just as interesting: learning about ADHD in a structured group setting produced many of the same benefits as mindfulness.

The takeaway isn't that meditation doesn't work. It's that there are multiple evidence-based ways to engage with your ADHD—and the best approach is the one you'll actually stick with.

What We Cover:

• What an 8-week mindfulness program changed for 7- to 8-year-old children
• How researchers measured attention and psychological wellbeing
• How mindfulness compared with psychoeducation in adults with ADHD
• Where mindfulness showed unique benefits
• Why understanding your ADHD and connecting with others may matter as much as the specific technique

Want more of Will's work?

Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Every founder with ADHD has wondered whether they quit too early. A 2024 foraging study unexpectedly suggests the opposite may sometimes be true. Researchers built an experiment expecting ADHD traits to be a disadvantage, and instead discovered the average person stayed too long.

Skye and Robert explore what that means beyond the lab, why ADHD may be an advantage during the exploratory stage of entrepreneurship, why pivoting is not always a flaw, and why the same trait can become either a strength or a liability depending on the environment.

What We Cover:

• Why researchers expected ADHD traits to hurt performance, and what the data actually showed
• How "leaving too soon" turned out to be closer to the optimal strategy
• Why ADHD entrepreneurs may be overrepresented in the exploratory startup phase, but not in scaling
• The real costs of pivoting for teams, and when those costs are worth paying
• Why the same ADHD trait can be either a strength or a struggle depending on the environment

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

She stared in the mirror one night, still wearing the workout clothes she'd put on that morning, and realized she couldn't remember if she'd had a sip of water all day.

Years before being diagnosed with ADHD, Sharon Pope was successfully leading startups while privately struggling with the basics of everyday life.

So she built the tool she wished she'd had: an AI task manager that follows up like a person instead of another notification.

In this conversation, Sharon shares how that breaking point became Shelpful, why she still relies on it every day, and what she's learned about building a company around a problem she still hasn't completely solved.

What We Cover

• Why doctors dismissed her ADHD because she was "too successful"
• The night she built the first Shelpful prototype in 24 hours
• Why human accountability didn't scale into a business
• How "Mega Remind" follows up until a task actually gets done
• Why she still depends on the product she built herself

Connect With Sharon Pope

Website: https://shelpful.com

Instagram: @shelpful

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You keep rereading the same task on your list. You know it matters. You still haven't started.

If that sounds familiar, it probably isn't a motivation problem. It may be because you're treating a project like it's a task.

In this episode, Skye and Robbie unpack why hidden complexity makes seemingly simple tasks feel impossible, why the ADHD brain mistakes importance for urgency, and how giving tasks a trusted "home" can dramatically reduce overwhelm. They also share practical strategies for breaking projects into manageable steps without falling into perfectionism or all-day hyperfocus. These ideas are grounded in the episode's central insight: urgency often comes from the fear of losing the task—not the deadline itself.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why some "tasks" are actually projects in disguise
• How hidden complexity leads to procrastination and overwhelm
• Why breaking a project down is progress—not procrastination
• The real reason everything starts to feel urgent with ADHD
• How to build a system you actually trust to hold your work
• What to do when you've stalled on a project and don't know how to restart

Whether you're running a business, managing a team, or simply trying to get through your to-do list, this episode will help you understand why certain tasks feel so much harder than they should—and what you can do about it.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

If planning your week, remembering the small stuff, or keeping up with admin feels harder than the actual work, you're not imagining it.

This week, Skye sits down with Mike Legett, an ADHD coach and executive functioning specialist who was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. Mike studied molecular genetics at Emory before leaving graduate school when its vague, paperwork-heavy demands became unworkable. She went on to build a career as an internationally recognized swing and blues dance instructor and now helps adults with ADHD build systems that work with their brains instead of against them through the Center for Living Well with ADHD.

Together, Skye and Mike unpack why ADHD isn't a lack of effort. It is often a mismatch between the person and the systems they are expected to work within. They explore why planning, memory, time management, and admin can become the biggest sources of stress, and what actually changes when you stop relying on willpower alone.

If you've ever wondered why the "boring parts" of running a business seem to drain you more than the work you love, this conversation will leave you with a clearer understanding of what's really happening and what you can do to make life easier.

What We Cover

• Why planning and admin create so much friction for ADHD brains
• How paperwork and unclear expectations led Mike to leave academia
• Why "just push through it" usually makes things worse
• What changed when Mike stopped trying to manage everything alone
• How better systems reduce mental load without requiring perfect discipline
• Why working with your brain beats fighting against it

Connect With Mike Legett

https://www.mikelegett.com/

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Everyone says people with ADHD have "time blindness." But what does that actually mean?

In this Research Recap, Skye Waterson and Will Curb review a decade of research (2012–2022) on time perception in adults with ADHD. Rather than treating time as one skill, the research separates it into three: estimating how long something will take, reproducing a duration, and managing time day to day.

One finding stands out: many ADHD struggles begin with inaccurate time estimation. If your brain can't reliably predict how long a task will take, missed deadlines, last-minute work, and chronic lateness start to make much more sense. Skye and Will also explore what the research suggests actually helps—from visual timers and external cues to breaking projects into smaller pieces that are easier to estimate.

What You'll Learn

• Why ADHD affects time estimation, time reproduction, and time management differently
• The difference between circadian, interval, and millisecond timing
• Why visual timers often work better than clocks
• Why giving yourself "more time" usually isn't the solution
• How breaking projects into smaller steps improves time estimation
• Why external accountability is often more effective than self-imposed deadlines

Learn more from Will at HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe to the Hacking Your ADHD podcast.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You don't need another productivity hack. You need systems that still work when your brain doesn't.

Cas Aarssen built the Clutterbug Method, hosted HGTV's Hot Mess House, and grew a global brand by stopping the fight against her ADHD and designing her home and business around how she naturally works.

In this conversation, she shares the hard lessons that came from burnout, why traditional organizing advice kept failing her, and how building systems around real habits instead of ideal ones changed everything. From running a team without endless SOPs to creating spaces that stay functional even on hard days, Cas explains what it actually takes to build systems that last.

If you've ever felt like you're constantly rebuilding your life from scratch, this episode offers a more sustainable way forward.

What We Cover

• Why burnout pushed her to rethink the way she worked
• Building systems around your actual habits instead of your ideal self
• The Clutterbug Method and why one organizing style doesn't fit everyone
• Delegating through ownership instead of endless SOPs
• Creating a home and business that work with an ADHD brain, not against it

Connect With Cas Aarssen

https://clutterbug.me/what-clutterbug-are-you-test

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've been told you pivot too fast. This research suggests your timing might be right.

A 2024 Royal Society paper tested how long people stay in a depleting resource before moving to a new one, using a model from ecology called the marginal value theorem. The prediction was that ADHD traits would cause people to leave too soon.

The data found the opposite. ADHD participants left patches closer to the mathematically optimal point and ended up with more total reward. Skye and Robbie break down the bias built into the original prediction and what it means for telling the difference between a smart pivot and flailing.

What We Cover:

• The 2024 study and the foraging game researchers built
• The marginal value theorem and what "optimal" leaving looks like
• Why the prediction assumed ADHD would underperform
• What the actual results showed about exit timing
• How to tell a strategic pivot from impulsive flailing

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You get bored with the offer that's working, so you go build a new one. James Wedmore has run the same program and the same live event for ten years and says that's the entire reason it grew. He explains the difference between a real "this isn't working" and a feeling that just shows up the moment things get hard. He also breaks down why he became a bottleneck in his own business, what changed when he got specific about role clarity, and why he keeps his identity and worth separate from his revenue numbers.

What We Cover:

• Why James calls novelty-chasing "first gear" and how it traps founders for years
• The test for telling a real pivot signal from a hard-moment feeling
• What changed when his business went from $2M to $10M in one year
• Why role clarity exposed the real reason he couldn't delegate
• How separating his identity from his revenue numbers changed everything

Connect With James Wedmore
https://www.jameswedmoretraining.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jameswedmore/?hl=en

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You're exhausted all day, then suddenly wired at 10pm. That's not random. Research suggests it's tied to a delayed circadian rhythm that's common in ADHD.

In this Research Recap, Skye and Will unpack a paper examining ADHD as a circadian rhythm disorder. This isn't a list of sleep hygiene tips. It's a look at what's actually different in the ADHD body's clock, and why typical advice misses it.

Understanding the delay changes how you plan your day, not just your bedtime.

What We Cover:

• Why energy peaks late even when sleep is the goal
• Daytime melatonin levels found in kids with ADHD
• How light therapy and timing affect circadian reset
• Melatonin dosing research (less works better than more)
• What ultradian rhythms are and how they differ from circadian ones

Want more of Will's work?

Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've reread the same paragraph three times and still couldn't tell anyone what it said.

Skye and Robbie return to the DSM-5 for Part 2 of their criteria breakdown, this time on criterion B: difficulty sustaining attention. They work through real examples, rereading pages, checking out of meetings, losing focus on audiobooks even at double speed, and land on why none of it happens during a good movie or video game.

The conversation distinguishes between attention that drifts because a task is boring and attention that locks in because something is stimulating, and why that distinction matters more than effort or discipline. If you've ever wondered why you can sit through eight hours of a game but not eight minutes of a report, this explains the mechanism.

What We Cover:

• Why criterion B shows up in reading, meetings, and lectures specifically
• Why audiobooks don't solve the problem, even at 2x speed
• Why games and gripping movies don't trigger the same drift
• The difference between voluntary distraction and involuntary attention loss
• Why removing stimulation (a quiet room) often backfires

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You spend years building workarounds for your own brain, then realize you could build your company the same way.

Chris Wang did exactly that.

As co-founder and CEO of Shimmer, an ADHD coaching platform that has delivered more than 90,000 coaching sessions, Chris was diagnosed with ADHD at 28 while building the company. Instead of treating her personal systems and her business systems as separate problems, she applied the same coaching frameworks, structure, automation, and strength-based development directly to how Shimmer operates.

In this conversation, Chris shares what that looked like in practice: what she automated, what stayed human, how she structured fundraising as an ADHD founder, and why she stopped trying to build the company differently than she was learning to manage herself.

Connect With Chris Wang

Chris is on instagram: @adhd.christal and you can learn more about Shimmer at www.shimmer.care

What We Cover

• Why Chris applied her ADHD coaching framework to company operations
• The automation that removed admin work for coaches
• How she decides what should stay human and what should be automated
• Her fundraising system for managing outreach, follow-ups, and rejection
• Why strength-based delegation changed how her team works
• How personal ADHD systems became Shimmer's operating model

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've read the ADHD criteria a dozen times and still aren't sure if you actually qualify.
Skye and Robbie Waterson and sit down with the DSM-5 itself and read through the inattentive criteria line by line, the same list a clinician would use for an actual diagnosis. They score themselves against each one in real time, and they don't agree on most of them.
The conversation covers why the criteria were written for children and then loosely translated for adults, why "close attention to detail" means something different for someone who triple checks every payment versus someone who doesn't notice errors at all, and why your own family's version of "normal" can hide a pattern you've had your whole life. Skye also explains the difference between primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive, and combined type, and why subclinical scores still matter even if you never meet the full six-symptom threshold.
If you've ever wondered whether you "really" have ADHD or just relate to some of it, this episode shows you exactly what's being measured and why that question is harder to answer than it sounds.
What We Cover:

• The actual nine inattentive criteria from the DSM-5, read directly from the manual
• Why the same criterion can apply to one person and not the other, even with shared ADHD
• How the criteria shift between children and adults
• Why family normal can mask a lifelong pattern
• The difference between subclinical and clinical, and why it still matters

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Most productivity advice for ADHD is written for people who just need a nudge. If you have ADHD, you need something more honest than that.

Ari Tuckman holds a PsyD and an MBA, has authored five books on ADHD, and has spent over 40,000 hours in clinical work with adults. He co-chairs the largest ADHD conference in the US and has been quoted in the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post.

In this conversation, Ari breaks down what productivity actually means for ADHD brains, why "don't get in trouble" is not a good enough goal, and how business owners can use external structure and the right people to focus on where they add the most value.

Connect With Ari Tuckman:  www.DrAriTuckman.com.

What We Cover

• Why simplistic productivity advice fails ADHD adults and what to look for instead
• The difference between managing ADHD to survive versus building a life worth having
• How to hire an assistant who will act as external executive function, not just a scheduler
• The role of reputation-building when ADHD makes consistency hard
• Ari's "things lead to things" principle and how it applies to business growth

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Running your business on anxiety feels like productivity. It isn't. It's a system built on urgency, and it burns out fast.

Research suggests that goal-focused interventions can reduce anxiety in adults with ADHD. What they don't appear to do is meaningfully improve executive functioning. Skye and Will break down a Norwegian randomized controlled trial on goal management training, what it found, and why that gap between feeling less anxious and actually getting more done matters for how you run your work.

What We Cover

• Why using anxiety as a task manager is a direct path to burnout
• What the research found about goal management training and anxiety reduction
• Why the study's results showed little change in executive functioning despite structured intervention
• The difference between reducing mental load and building systems that improve output
• What's missing from most ADHD support frameworks when it comes to actual mechanics

Want more of Will's work? Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe on YouTube.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've launched things that seemed solid, only to watch them unravel for reasons that felt obvious afterward. That's not a judgment problem. For ADHD founders, retrospective clarity comes naturally. The pre-mortem is a tool that pulls that clarity forward, to the start of a project, when fixing problems is still cheap.

Skye and Robbie break down the pre-mortem method, developed by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein and later popularized by Daniel Kahneman, and explain why it fits ADHD-wired brains in particular. ADHD founders tend to communicate broad vision without the full set of dependencies, leaving teams misaligned and triggering micromanagement loops. They're also prone to hyperfocused tunneling in the wrong direction. The pre-mortem interrupts both patterns before they cost you.

They also cover how to use it as a minimum viable test. Before a prototype, before a hire, before a pivot, spend an afternoon stress-testing the idea. Sometimes the right output is: don't do this.

What We Cover

• Why ADHD founders naturally access retrospective clarity, and how to use it at project start instead of after the fact
• How incomplete vision communication creates micromanagement loops, and what the pre-mortem does to close that gap
• The novelty bias and hyperfocus tunneling problem, and why planning for failure acts as a directional check
• How to run a pre-mortem solo, with a team, or with AI, including a specific reverse prompting approach
• Why a half-day pre-mortem with AI or a mentor counts as your minimum viable test before any build

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Sitting in a parking lot after leaving the bankruptcy attorney's office, $600,000 in debt written off, home gone, Galel Fajardo told himself no one would ever hire him again.

Galel Fajardo is a business coach, digital marketing consultant, and fractional CMO with 23 years of entrepreneurial experience and a Master's in Performance Psychology. He specializes in helping high-performing entrepreneurs, especially those with ADHD, whose businesses look successful from the outside and feel like a prison from the inside. His clients have doubled their revenue, with one scaling from $2.5M to $10.1M in three years, not by working harder, but by building the right structure first. He coaches from the only credential that actually matters: he has lived every problem he teaches.

What he learned through that experience, his ADHD diagnosis, and years of coaching shapes how he thinks about execution, delegation, and the internal stories that stall growth.

This episode covers the specific frameworks Galel uses in his own business and with his clients.

What We Cover:

• Why the systems that work in your 20s tend to fail once a business reaches real complexity and what to replace them with
• How Galel uses AI as a ruthless critic rather than a yes-machine to pressure-test ideas before committing resources
• The structural reason ADHD brains are strong activators but need an external check to finish and execute
• Why transparency about ADHD with your team tends to improve delegation rather than undermine authority
• How Galel identifies the belief underneath an activation problem and works with clients to shift it

Connect With Galel Fajardo Website: https://www.galel.com

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've built systems before. You probably built them well. The problem wasn't creating them. The problem was maintaining them once the novelty wore off.

Wednesday's episode explored why ADHD founders often struggle with operational consistency. This episode covers the structural solution.

The systems integrator role sits between the ADHD founder and the rest of the business. It captures ideas, filters priorities, protects the team from constant pivots, and builds the documentation that turns founder insight into repeatable execution.

Skye and Robbie break down the four functions of the role, how it differs from an EA or COO, how it scales as a business grows, and the hiring mistakes that cause founders to recreate the same bottlenecks they're trying to solve.

What We Cover

• The four functions of a systems integrator and how they differ from a standard EA or COO role
• How raw creative output gets processed through pre-agreed prioritization filters before it reaches the team
• Why the role acts as a gravitational buffer against novelty-seeking attention wells pulling the team off course
• How the role scales from solopreneur to COO-led team
• The three hiring mistakes ADHD founders make when trying to solve the structural problem

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Your business is doing well. Momentum is real, clients are happy, and structure feels like the enemy right now. But if you turn that camera around and look past the founder, you find a stressed team running on broken systems, one sick day away from everything slowing to a stop.

Research on ADHD traits and project management suggests operational effectiveness, specifically goal setting, milestone tracking, and resource allocation, drops measurably when ADHD traits are present. The mediating factor is not inability. It is role stress: the compounding weight of having more tasks than your brain can hold and no clear sense of what matters most.

This episode breaks down what the research found and what it means for ADHD founders building a team. Friday covers the practical response.

What We Cover

• Why teammates rated people with higher ADHD traits lower on operational effectiveness, including goal clarity, milestone mapping, and resource allocation
• What role stress is and why the research found it significantly mediates the relationship between ADHD and project management performance
• Why the disorganization doesn't stay at the founder level. It cascades onto the team below.
• How the creative strengths in ADHD are real, and why the research suggests they need a specific kind of support to work
• Why entrepreneurship gives ADHD founders a structural option that teachers, nurses, and academics never get

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You've tried the calendars, the timers, the hacks. They work for two weeks and then stop. Jenna Free says that's not a discipline problem. It's a regulation problem.

Jenna is a counselor for ADHD with ADHD, author of The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, and has worked in-depth with over 1,000 people through her ADHD Regulation Method. Her position is direct: dysregulation is not a fixed trait of the ADHD brain. It is a learned response to a lifetime of friction. And it is the reason every other system eventually fails.

We cover her three-level regulation framework, why she skips meditation and breathing exercises entirely, how dysregulated beliefs quietly block delegation and visibility in your business, and what physical signs most ADHD business owners have normalized as just a Tuesday.

What We Cover

• Why regulation has to come before any other system or tool
• The three levels Jenna works on: nervous system, thoughts and beliefs, behavior
• Why negative self-talk and urgency feel like they work, and what they actually cost you
• How dysregulation shows up as delegation avoidance and RSD in business
• The first practical step to start noticing and interrupting dysregulation today

Connect With Jenna Free 
Book Title: THE SIMPLE GUIDE TO ADHD REGULATION: The Secret to Finding Balance, Getting Things Done, and Enjoying

Social Media Links & Show Notes:

• TikTok: @adhdwithjennafree ; www.tiktok.com/@adhdwithjennafree
• Instagram: @adhdwithjennafree ; www.instagram.com/adhdwithjennafree
• Podcast: ADHD with Jenna Free; https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/adhd-with-jenna-free/id1801356817
• Website: https://www.adhdwithjennafree.com/

Here is the link for the free PDF I mentioned www.adhdwithjennafree.com/adhdguide

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Why do so many people start ADHD medication... and then quietly stop within a year or two?

In this Research Recap, Skye and Will unpack a systematic literature review examining why over half of all patients discontinue or significantly reduce ADHD medication within 2 to 3 years of starting.

This episode isn't about whether you should take medication.

It's about something more practical: what the data actually found about why people stop, where expert assumptions conflict with what patients reported, and how access barriers, drug holidays, and whether someone chose treatment for themselves all appear to shape long-term adherence.

If you've ever let a refill lapse and told yourself you'd sort it later, this episode will feel uncomfortably familiar.

What we cover:

• Why over half of patients discontinue ADHD medication within 2 to 3 years, and what the data found as the top reasons
• The gap between what experts assumed drove discontinuation and what patients actually reported
• How drug holidays, sometimes recommended by doctors, complicated how researchers tracked real adherence
• Why access barriers like pharmacy friction, moving states, and losing a prescriber show up as a real factor
• What the research suggests about people who sought treatment themselves versus those pushed into it

Want more of Will's work? Go check out HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe to his YouTube channel.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You're generating real revenue. But every time you open your banking app, your brain shuts down and you close it again.

Nicole Stanley is the founder of Arise Financial Coaching and creator of the Money Momentum Method. Late-diagnosed with ADHD at 30, scoring in the 99th percentile for severity, she built a financial method that turned out to be designed for ADHD brains before she knew she had one. She crossed $250,000 in revenue last year and has helped clients save an average of $40,000 annually.

Nicole explains why standard budgeting fails ADHD brains, why most business owners are solving the wrong financial problem, and how her method works without willpower or expense tracking.

She also walks through her five-problem financial diagnostic. Less than 10% of people actually have a spending problem. Most are misdiagnosing themselves entirely.

If avoidance has been your default financial strategy, this conversation gives you a different place to start.

What We Cover

• Why budgeting fails ADHD brains - it looks backwards and produces shame, not behaviour change
• The five financial problems and why most business owners are fixing the wrong one
• How the Money Momentum Method was ADHD-designed before Nicole knew she had ADHD
• The curiosity framework: look at your numbers as if they belong to a friend
• Why financial problems are solvable problems, not evidence of who you are

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You know what your most important work is. You still spend the first four hours of the day doing everything else.

Casey Neistat recently posted a video called *Navigating the Matrix* showing how he organizes his workday as a creator with ADHD. He tracks his tasks in real time, explains the system he uses to manage everything, and ends by accepting the chaos as part of the deal.

Skye and Robert disagree with that conclusion.

In this standalone episode, they break down the hidden problem underneath Casey’s system — why ADHD business owners keep ending up trapped in urgent work, why prioritization systems collapse under pressure, and why the issue is usually structural, not motivational.

What We Cover:

- Why ADHD urgency bias overrides even well-designed prioritization systems
- How Casey’s four-color framework mirrors the Eisenhower Matrix — and where both break down
- Why task capture and task prioritization are two completely different cognitive jobs
- The real reason everything keeps ending up in the “urgent” category
- Why delegation is usually delayed far too long by ADHD business owners
- What changes when low-value operational tasks are consistently removed from your plate
- Why “being good under pressure” quietly creates long-term business chaos

This episode is less about productivity tactics and more about the hidden operating system underneath ADHD work patterns.

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You built something people love. Running the business of it is a different problem entirely.

Dani Donovan is the creator of The Anti-Planner, a self-published ADHD productivity workbook that generated over $1 million in its first year and has now sold more than 115,000 copies with a 4.9-star rating. She built it without a business plan, without onboarding documents, and without a team that had done any of this before.

In this conversation, Dani explains how a single ADHD comic from 2018 nearly never got posted, how a business coach’s field guide exercise became the product she actually needed, and what happened when she had to tell 28,000 pre-order customers their books were running late.

We also get into the part nobody warns you about: what hiring looks like when there are no SOPs, no infrastructure, and no clear handoff between the creative work and the operational side of the business.

This is a conversation about the hidden cost of scaling creative ADHD-led businesses — and why building the thing is often easier than building the systems around it.

What We Cover:

• How Dani designed The Anti-Planner around what she actually used instead of what productivity systems were “supposed” to look like
• Why she turned down traditional publishing and protected creative control over the product
• The pre-order strategy that generated 42,000 orders across two launches
• What happened when she had to email 28,000 customers about delayed orders — and why almost nobody asked for refunds
• Why scaling an ADHD-led business gets operationally difficult long before it looks successful from the outside

Connect with Dani Donovan:

• Website: https://anti-planner.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danidonovan
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@danidonovan

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

Nobody agreed on what done looked like. The handover happened anyway. That is where it fell apart.

This episode is the practical follow-up to Wednesday. Skye and Robbie walk through the specific hiring and handover process they use with ADHD founders, including what they have lost money figuring out so you do not have to.

The hiring side covers why video applications and paid test projects replace interviews, how to write a role description that filters for initiative rather than compliance, and what it looks like when you have found the right person versus when you are about to make an expensive mistake.

The handover side covers the 10-80-10 rule, writing a one-sentence definition of done before anything starts, naming your re-entry triggers upfront, building a decision boundary so the team knows what comes back to you and what does not, and scheduling check-ins so the anxiety has somewhere to go other than a late-night message.

They also cover the two failure modes when none of this is set up: the founder absorbs everything back, or the team stops trying.

What We Cover:

• How to write a role description specific enough to attract the right person and filter out everyone else
• Why paid test projects show you more in two hours than an interview shows you in two rounds
• The 10-80-10 rule and how to use it to stay connected without pulling work back through the middle
• What a definition of done actually looks like in writing, and why naming your re-entry triggers before the project starts changes everything
• How scheduled check-ins replace anxiety-driven re-entry and give the founder's worry somewhere structured to land

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

You hired someone good. The work was fine. You still sent the late-night Slack message, redirected the task, and checked in on something that had already been handled.

This episode looks at what the research suggests is actually driving that pattern. Not trust issues. Not a bad hire. A specific kind of perfectionism that shows up differently in people with ADHD.

Two studies help explain it. A 2016 study found perfectionism was the most common cognitive distortion in adults formally diagnosed with ADHD, endorsed by 55% of the sample. It was not close. A 2023 study then looked at what kind of perfectionism. Their findings indicate ADHD founders are not setting impossibly high standards. They are feeling the gap between what they expected and what was delivered more intensely than others. What drove avoidance most strongly was not perfectionism in the traditional sense, but the persistent feeling of falling short, even when the original standard was reasonable.

Delegation becomes the thing most associated with that painful shortfall. So the brain starts treating it as a threat.

Friday's episode covers the practical side: how to structure delegation so the gap is smaller from the start and your perfectionism has less to react to.

What We Cover:

• Why ADHD perfectionism research suggests it is not about high standards but about feeling any shortfall more acutely than others
• How the discrepancy between expected and actual output drives avoidance in ADHD founders specifically
• The two scenarios where delegation breaks down even when the team is competent and the work is solid
• Why the founder who re-enters delegated work is not micromanaging but responding to a learned pattern of emotional pain
• What Friday's episode will cover on structuring delegation to reduce that gap from the start

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.

The school sent her daughter to a desk with her head down because she could not sit still during circle time. That was the moment Jessica stopped waiting for someone else to figure it out.

Jessica Shaw is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Vanity Fair. She is the host of Everyone Gets a Juice Box, Understood.org's podcast for parents raising neurodivergent kids. She is also a mom of two teens who think differently, and someone who recognized her own ADHD only after researching her children's.

Skye and Jessica get into what the detective process actually looks like. Why parents are often dismissed first and believed later. How the school system's default response to a kid who cannot conform is to remove them rather than support them. What guilt sounds like when you feel like you should have seen it coming sooner. And why the window between noticing something and getting real support is longer, more expensive, and more isolating than it should be.

What We Cover:

• Why parents are often the last ones taken seriously, and what it takes to keep pushing anyway
• How school systems send a conformity message to neurodivergent kids and what it costs them long-term
• The financial and time barriers to evaluation, and why they fall unevenly across families
• What the detective process looks like when the parent doing the investigating also has undiagnosed ADHD
• Why one parent's decision to reduce work hours for her neurodivergent child was called "trad wife" by colleagues, and what that reveals about the support gap

Connect With Jessica Shaw

• Podcast: https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxec!podcast_guest
• ADHD Articles: https://www.understood.org/en/topics/adhd
• ADHD & Women: https://www.understood.org/en/topics/adhd-women
• Understood.org's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/understood/
• Understood.org's Instagram: @Understoodorg

P.S. If you’re a founder who’s tired of the mad scramble of disorganized systems and stressful HR, and you want a business that feels as easy as plugging your headphones into an iPod shuffle, I’ve got something for you.

Want to grow your business? 

My Focused Balanced Growth Program has everything you need to build consistent ADHD-friendly routines and processes to grow. Click here to learn more.

Looking for a coach who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain? 

I work with one company a month as a fractional consultant and COO, learning about your business and implementing systems that allow both trust & transparency with your team. Click here to book a call and discuss.