This is the number one brain hack I have encountered – I use it in my own life and try to get EVERY ADHDER I know to do it, too.
***WARNING I AM OFF MY MEDS FOR THIS EPISODE!!!***
Transcript
Kristen Carder
Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast, where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults. With ADHD, I’m your host, Kristen Carter and I have ADHD, let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder, I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? You are listening to the I have ADHD podcast episode number 16. How are you today? I am good, but here’s the deal. I am caffeinated, but I am not medicated today. Peeps, for the first time in the I have ADHD podcast history. I am not medicated.
You know, it’s one of those the prescriptions refilled, but it’s at the pharmacy, and I haven’t gotten to pick it up yet. Situations I am sure many, many, many of you can relate. So it is what it is today. We are just going to roll without the meds. I am extremely hyperactive. You know that I am a woman with ADHD who has been diagnosed with the hyperactive type, and so it’s gonna be an interesting episode. It’s gonna be fun. We are gonna have some fun, fun, fun. Now I will say that I am pretty high functioning, and my medication that I am taking currently is not a stimulant, it is a non stimulant.
So hopefully we won’t notice a huge difference. Stick with me, because today is going to be a really awesome brain hack, one of the most helpful things that I’ve implemented in my life that I am also now using with my clients, and they have been experiencing a lot of relief from this tactic as well. So that’s really awesome. I’m really, really excited to share it with you guys, but first, I want to tell you about an experience that I had on Saturday. One of my amazing Instagram friends and listeners is actually a professional organizer in Philly, and she reached out to me with an amazing idea, which I am just so excited that I have smart friends. I’m meeting so many fun, creative, smart people through this podcast, through Instagram and the Facebook group, and that has been one of the best like byproducts of this podcast is just meeting so many of you.
I enjoy it so much. So she reached out to me. Her name is Laura, and her company is pH l organizer. If you don’t know, PHL, is the airport code for Philadelphia, which I think is just, I mean, that’s so such a great name for a company, PHL organizer. So she’s a professional organizer. She also has ADHD, which I think that’s like a mind blower right there, like who with ADHD would ever go into the organizing profession, you know? So she reached out to me and she said, hey, I want to come and help you with your closet of shame. Now you guys who have been listening from the beginning know that I have this closet in my home that is a shameful, dreadful place. It is the closet of shame. It’s where everything goes. I don’t know what to do with it. Stuff sits there and accumulates the door like you have to use your entire body weight to open the door. And it’s just really an embarrassing place. If anyone in my life sees that closet, the shame creeps over me like nobody’s business. It’s like a wave of, wow. It’s really bad because nobody wants, I mean, I just don’t want anybody to see that. Oh my gosh.
So she reached out to me and she said, how about I come help you clean out your closet of shame, and we will do a podcast episode about it. And immediately I was like, absolutely yes. If anybody wants to offer to come help me with the closet of shame, the answer is going to be yes. And so last week, on Saturday, Laura, complete stranger, you know, I just I’ve known her from Instagram. She came to my home and like immediately I fell in love. She’s amazing, she’s funny. She’s bossier than I am, which is crazy, because I don’t know if I’ve ever met anybody bossier than me. It was so much fun to work with her and you guys the closet of shame. And it’s completely cleaned out. Not only is it cleaned out, but it’s, it’s pretty much like there’s hardly anything in there, because my husband and I are planning to do some renovations this summer that include turning the closet of shame into a laundry room. And so, you know, when she reached out to me and said, Hey, let me help you clean it, I was like, well, it needs to be more than cleaned. It needs to be completely cleared out. And so what we did was a lot of work, but it was so much fun to do it with her. And so we are going to do a podcast episode. It will either be released next week or the week after.
We’re just going to have to see how that works out. You know, as an ADHD er, I really don’t like to commit to a deadline, if I’m going to be honest. So in the very near future, we will release an episode, and it’s going to be all about organizing, and Laura is going to share her amazing tips with us. But if you’re in the Pennsylvania, like Eastern PA or southern Jersey area Jersey Shore, reach out to Laura so you can find her. Her website is PHL organizer.com and her Instagram is at PHL organizer. So I highly recommend working with an organ with a professional I mean, it was so amazing. I will do it again for sure. It was Oh my gosh. I can’t recommend it enough. It was amazing, and I can’t wait for you guys to hear her story. It’s really riveting. Her story is riveting. It’s going to be an awesome episode. So stay tuned for that real quick. Just real, real, real quick. I want to share with you the review of the week again. Thank you so much for rating and reviewing the podcast. It means so much to me. It means so so so much. Okay, here is a short and sweet review from e, w, w, T, they say, Thank you for taking the time to record and produce this podcast. The nuggets of knowledge you give are like Cliff Notes on the ADHD, for those of us with brilliant brains that are wired in a different way, strong work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you so much. Ewwt You are my new bestie. I really appreciate you taking the time and effort and energy to rate and review the podcast. Thank you, you guys. It’s like the best. Thank you present when you take the time to do that, because the ratings really matter. I’m just trying to learn about podcasting, but I do know that ratings and reviews matter a lot. So thanks. It really it takes like, two seconds to just press that star button. Whichever star button you choose to press is fine, but the rating is really important. So thank you. I love it. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about incorporating brain dumps into our daily lives. Now brain dump is something it’s a concept that I learned from my coach, Brooke Castillo, and I have, I’m borrowing it from her with permission, and I am adapting it for the ADHD er, so we’re going to talk all about it here, but I want to let you know that I am creating show notes for this episode. And if you would like a printable of what I am going to talk through today, you can go to I have adhd.com/brain dump, and you can get a printable guide that will walk you through a brain dump.
Now, let me talk to you just for a minute about why what a brain dump is and why it’s important. Basically, a brain dump is getting everything out of your brain. It is clearing the clutter from your brain. Now I believe, with all of my heart that your brain is your most valuable resource. Resource. It’s your most valuable asset. It is the most important and expensive and valuable thing that you have. Okay, and I treat my brain like it is the most important, valuable and expensive thing that I have, or at least, I am trying to begin the journey of treating my brain like it is the most expensive, valuable and important resource I have. So for example, today I am unmedicated. That will make you know, LA, yesterday, I took my medication at like 7:30am so it’s been 24 hours since then. I will not let it go another 24 hours. I will make sure that I go today pick up my medication.
That is just one of the ways that I. My brain, I take really good care of it in that way. I really try to feed it healthy foods, I really try to get enough sleep, and I invest in things like therapy, life coaching, all of these things that are going to treat my brain with the respect that it deserves. Okay, so your brain is your most valuable resource. One of the ways that we can take care of our brains and make sure that we are using our brains to its fullest potential is doing a daily brain dump. What a brain dump is is it is writing down absolutely every thought that is in your brain, everything you have to do, everything that’s hanging over your head, everything that you’re thinking about, everything that you want to do or wish you could do, all the appointments you have, absolutely everything gets cleared from your brain and gets put down on paper.
Now I’m going to teach you how to do this, but I want to say that incorporating daily brain dumps in my life have allowed me to take control of my schedule. It’s allowed me to take control of the vision that I have for my life. It’s allowed me to take control about the way that I’m thinking about my life. I forget things a whole lot less when I clear them from my brain and get them down onto paper. I sleep so much better when I clear everything from my brain and I don’t have that sickening feeling like I forgot my homework, but I’m not sure what my homework even is. Okay. So many of us, ADHD ers walk around in this fog of knowing there’s so many things we need to do, but not really remembering exactly what they are. So we have this constant feeling of dread. We have this constant feeling of I know there’s something I need to be doing, but I’m not really quite sure what it is. Making sure that I clear the clutter from my brain every day has also made me a much, much happier person, so much happier it’s allowed me to really feel like I’m free because I’m not carrying around the weight of all of the things that I have to do and remember in my brain, one of the things that I’m learning is that my brain is not meant to be a storage locker. That is not its purpose. That is not the best use for my brain. The best use for my brain is to develop ideas, to solve problems, to be creative, to dream about the future. The best use for my brain is not to be a cluttered, you know, overflowing storage locker that you can’t even close, that you have to, like, bump your body up against to get the latch clothes, you know I’m talking about. I mean, my high school locker was like that. It was an embarrassing disaster of a mess. And I think a lot of us walk around with brains like that. We are not making sure that we are observing our brains. So one of the best ways to do this is to incorporate a daily brain dump in our lives.
So what a brain dump is is basically grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, if you have a notebook, great, if you’re just using the back of an envelope, whatever. It really doesn’t matter, because it’s not going to be fancy. It’s not going to be beautiful. It’s just going to be something, some place, where you can get every thought out of your head and get it down onto paper. Okay, so you’re going to grab pen or pencil and paper, and you’re going to begin to write down absolutely everything in your brain. It doesn’t have to be in order. It doesn’t have to be pretty. But make sure you don’t stop yourself in this process. Just keep writing and writing and writing until you’ve literally run out of things to write. Now. Just keep asking yourself, what else? What else? What else? Okay, keep asking your brain, what else? What else? What is hanging over my head? What do I want to do that I’ve been forgetting to do? What do I have to do today? What meetings or appointments do I have coming up? Who do I need to talk to? Who do I need to remind to do that thing for me? Now think about last week at work. Is there anything that you forgot to do or didn’t finish that you should think about your partner? Have they asked you to do anything recently that you keep forgetting to do? What do you want to get done around the house? What’s bugging you right now? What would be awesome if you. Did it like what have you been wanting to do that you just haven’t done yet? So keep asking yourself these questions, what else? What else? What else? Now, remember, I’m gonna have all of this written out for you as a printable. Over at I have adhd.com/brain dump, so you don’t have to remember all of this info. Okay, you can print it out, and then you can just stick it in your notebook. And every day, when you go to do a brain dump, you can just follow these specific questions. All right, so now everything’s out of your brain. You’ve spent five or 10 or 15 minutes just clearing everything out.
Now, the first time you do it, it’s probably going to be a ton of stuff, but don’t let that overwhelm you. Okay, I am beginning to believe that overwhelm is a choice, which is mind blowing for me, because I’ve always felt like I’m a victim of my ADHD. In this way that overwhelm is just something that happens to me, and I will say that neurodevelopmentally, I am more prone to it, but I also have a choice in the matter, okay? And you do too. So look at that mess that you’ve just written. And even if those feelings of overwhelm begin to creep in, just observe them. Wow. I am starting to feel overwhelmed. I have a choice to make right now. I can continue with this feeling of overwhelm, or I can push it to the side. Okay, you do have a choice here. So take a deep breath and be proud of yourself. Look at all that clutter that was in your head. It’s not in your head anymore. Your locker is all cleaned out. I’m so proud of you. Okay, so now take a hot minute and realize that you’re a grown adult. Okay? You don’t have to do anything on that list, nothing, and I know that you’re going to probably react to that in a way that’s like, well, that’s not true, because I have to blah, blah, blah, blah, but here’s the deal. You have complete free will. You do not have to do one single thing.
You don’t have to eat, you don’t have to sleep, you don’t have to clean, you don’t have to go to work, you don’t have to pay your taxes, you don’t have to live. You don’t have to do anything. Okay, that, again, is borrowed from my coach, Brooke Castillo, you don’t have to do anything. She’s teaching me so much, and I want to share what she is teaching me with you. Now, there will be consequences if you don’t do things, okay, but realize that you are in charge of you. No one is making you do anything out of obligation. If you choose to do a project for work, it’s because you want to keep your job right. If you choose to do your taxes, it’s because you don’t want to be fined. Those are choices that you’re making. Okay? So make those choices on purpose, but realize that no one is forcing you to do anything. So be empowered. You have choices. You have options, and you are not a victim of this list. All right, be empowered. So I want you to go through that list and cross off anything that you would like to consciously choose not to do you can make the decision that it’s not a priority to you and you are allowed not to do it. Now understand that there will be consequences, but if you’re willing to accept those consequences, you may delete the item from your list and subsequently delete it from your brain.
Okay, so now with what’s left, how do you decide your priorities? Right? So you’ve just done this brain dump. You have all this clutter that was once in your brain now out on paper. Those of us with ADHD really struggle to prioritize and plan. This is something that is an executive functioning deficiency that we all I would say most, at least most of us, we share this deficiency. Okay? It’s a deficiency in our brains, prefrontal cortex, all right, and it’s the deficiency in our ability to prioritize and plan. So in order to hack that deficiency, what you’re going to do is you’re going to ask yourself some questions. Now I have here my four questions that help me to prioritize. You can develop your own okay? Or you can borrow mine. You are more than welcome to borrow mine. So here are my questions. Number one, if I don’t do it, will it cost me my physical or mental health?
If the answer is yes, then it goes into the priority number one spot, because my physical and mental health are priority number one. All right. Yeah. Question number two, if I don’t do it, will it cost me a relationship with someone on my top 10 List? This goes back to the relationship episode number one. Part one, I mean, and it’s all about creating priorities in our relationships, so that now that we’re onto a to do list, we can create priorities in our to do list. So if I don’t do it, will it cost me a relationship with someone on my top 10 list? If so, it goes into a priority number two spot. Next question, if I don’t do it, will it cost me my job or my paycheck or a significant amount of money? If so, priority number three. And lastly, if I don’t do it, will it cost me the future that I want to have? This goes back to the episode on living with vision, okay, if I don’t do it, will it cost me the future that I want to have? If so, it goes into Priority number four. All right, so you have decided what you’re going to do, and now we have a way to organize it in priority. So the next step is we’re going to schedule everything from that cluttered, crazy brain dump list, we’re going to schedule all of that onto our calendars. Now we do have the option to just make a list, you know, just like put it all onto a list, and throw it up on the wall where we can see it, and then check it off as we go. And yes, that is an option, and it’s always good to get things where you can see it, but I am going to offer here that putting it actually on your calendar, on your schedule, making these decisions in advance of what you’re choosing to do and when that’s going to be far more helpful to those of us who struggle with impulsivity in the moment.
Okay, we’re not good at using our executive functioning brains, our prefrontal cortex in the moment by moment basis, which is why we need to set time aside to think through, prioritize and plan in advance. So I want to encourage you to take all of the things that you have deliberately chosen to be priorities in your life, and put them on your schedule, on your calendar with reminders. Okay, so you’re gonna add each item to your calendar. You’re gonna make sure that you allow buffer time, meaning like, if you think the task will take you 30 minutes, maybe allow at least 1520, 30 minutes longer than that, so that you can, you know, put in time for transitions and distractions. Okay, so if you have clean out the car on your calendar and you think it’ll take about 30 minutes, maybe you should allow just an hour just in case. Okay, and if you get it done faster than that. Great, that’s a bonus, but at least you’ll know you have enough time to get it done. Okay? And you want to set reminders for each item on your schedule. So I love using Google Calendar, so I put everything on my Google Calendar with a reminder, so that not only is it on my calendar, but it also pops up on my phone 15 minutes in advance, okay? Because I always have my phone with me. Let’s be honest about that. Okay, so you’ve cleared the clutter from your brain. You’ve crossed off anything that you are choosing not to do, deliberately and consciously choosing not to do. Then you’ve put it in order of priority, and now you’ve scheduled everything on your calendar. First of all, let me just say, if you’ve done all of those things, you are an amazing human and I’m so proud of you. The next thing is maybe the hardest, and here it is. When it’s time to do the thing on your calendar, you have to do it. Okay, so there are two types of brains. There’s our executive brain that does the prioritizing, the planning, the thinking through the knowing what they want for your future, okay, that’s your executive brain. Then you have your toddler brain. And your toddler brain is the impulsive ADHD brain, okay?
And even though you are hindered by a neurodevelopmental disorder, you also are a grown human with choices, with free will, and you can begin to hack your ADHD brain. Part of that comes with making sure that you’re medicated. Part of that comes with making sure you’re supported by a therapist and or a coach. Part of that comes with making sure that you’re exercising and eating and sleeping, but also, if you’re doing all five of those things, then you will, I’m telling you, you will. Will be able to hack your ADHD brain and make sure that you’re doing the things that you have set aside as priorities. Okay, so don’t let your impulsive toddler brain talk you out of doing what your executive brain decided in advance would be a good idea. One of the ways that I have hacked my brain in these moments of not wanting to do what I’ve planned to do is I talk out loud to myself. Now you know, or you should know, or here I’m giving you this information.
Those of us with ADHD do not have the ability to self talk the way that a typical brain does. Okay, so a typical brain can basically have a conversation with themself in their brain. I’m so jealous of this. I am so so so jealous is one of the biggest, I think deficiencies of ADHD is not being able to self talk. So we don’t have that inner voice, that clear inner voice, saying, This is the right thing to do. Keep going. You can do it. You can do it instead. We have clutter and noise and distraction, right? So one way to hack that is to talk out loud like a crazy person and listen, we are kind of crazy, and that’s fine. Okay, so it’s all good. Embrace it, talk out loud to yourself. So that’s something that I do all the time, something like, Okay, I see that I have to finish my project for work. I really don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do it right now. I really want to go on Instagram instead. But if I go on Instagram, I’m not going to finish the project for work. And if I don’t finish the Project For Project For work, my client’s going to be mad. And if my client’s going to be mad, they might leave my company. And I really don’t want to do that to myself or my employees or the client. And so how about I put my phone in phone jail for just 30 minutes, and if I just get started on it for 30 minutes, I bet I can finish it. Literally, I say those things outside to myself, not outside out loud. That was weird, okay, but if I really hear myself talking about Instagram versus my job that I love, the decision becomes pretty easy. I’m going to pick my job that I love, right? So if you’re struggling with something like your phone or video games or whatever it is that’s distracting, you really talk to yourself about it out loud. Do I really want to go shopping more than I want to keep my job? Do I really want to play video games more than I want to invest in my partner? Do I really want to go on Facebook more than I want to clean my house because I have company coming over later? No, right? If we can really hear ourselves say it, we know the answer is no, it’s just hard to make those decisions when it’s all in our brain clutter, all right, so I would like to recommend that you make this a daily practice. I’m trying to do a brain dump every day. It doesn’t happen every day, but even if I just do it once a week, it is so powerful.
So if I do a brain dump every Monday, which I absolutely make myself do it on Mondays, and I schedule out my entire week, and I make decisions in advance about what’s important, what I want to get done, who I want to be, who I want to invest in, what types of things that are hanging over my head that I don’t want to be hanging over my head anymore. It absolutely allows me to have more power in my life. It allows me to, over time, become the person that I want to become. Now, like I said earlier, you may feel as though this is overwhelming at first, but just because it feels overwhelming does not mean you should avoid it. I invite you to add this into your daily or weekly practice two or three or four times and see how it can transform your life. See how it can allow you to take back control over the things that you just feel like are spinning outside of your control. It will likely allow you to sleep better, as it does for me. It will likely allow you to show up as the a better version of yourself, as it does for me. So I would just love for you to give it a try. And remember, if you want to be walked through this practice, you can go to Ihaveadhd.com/braindump, and you can download the free printable. It has all of my notes from this podcast, and it has all of the questions that I. Ask myself during my brain dump. And also including the priorities, like how to prioritize, you are not a victim of your brain, there are ways that you can hack it. Most importantly, get the treatment that you need and deserve, whether it’s medication, supplements, diet, exercise, working with a therapist, working with a coach, those five things are going to be the most impactful for you. And then once you have incorporated healthy and good treatment for your extremely, extremely expensive and valuable brain, then you can start to incorporate these brain hacks, such as a brain dump. It is going to change your life, and I can’t wait to hear how it’s helped you.
You guys, I think I made it through this episode completely unmedicated and still stayed pretty much on topic. So I’m really excited about that, yay. Have an awesome, awesome week. I will see you next time. Hey, you made it to the end of the episode. You are such a freaking boss. Great job. Listen, I want to encourage you to go to my website. I have adhd.com on it. You’ll find a psychologist approved list of symptoms and lots of resources to help you thrive as an adult with ADHD. And if you ever get stuck and want to work out these things one on one in a coaching situation, please make sure to reach out to me. I would absolutely love to work with you.
