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Episode 22 - Habit Stacking with ADHD
92 Plays2 years ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) chat about how Habit Stacking can help us Adult ADHDers get some shit done! Simples... or is it?
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Put quill to paper and send us an email at: ADHDville@gmail.com
Theme music was written by Freddie Philips and played by Martin West. All other music by Martin West.
Please remember:
This is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
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Transcript
Perspectives and Noise Pollution
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm thinking, how does it look in your end? It's hard to tell because it's a really linear.
00:00:10
Speaker
So yeah, it came to mind, its theme keeps coming up time and time again about noise pollution, or at least in my world, noise pollution. Like just before Christmas, I was remembering, it was in this store just to buy some kind of
00:00:32
Speaker
like toggle from a USB device went down there and it was full of like Christmas jingles popping or popping off all over the place. Cause people were buying Christmas decorations and it was trying to get me crazy. So, you know, the worst, it's the worst kind of noise for me is like that, like monotone tinny kind of, um, I don't know, carpenters rendition, you know, with, with, um, coming out of a plastic tree.
00:01:03
Speaker
All right. And lots of people like, yeah, it's on the high, the high frequency of a really shitty speaker playing, playing a little simply stupid version. Yeah.
Holiday Mishaps and Traditions
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah. And if I got what I think, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
00:01:28
Speaker
And I just grabbed the nearest thing that I needed and I got out. I turned out to be a boss of Tampax. I won't even tell you what dimension they were. I shall now have to have to tie this bits of string onto the Christmas tree now. And just say, yeah, Christmas decorations, mate. I've seen worse decorations.
00:01:56
Speaker
You know what I did one year was I didn't buy a Christmas tree. So what happens in New York typically, and this may happen elsewhere, is like almost the day after Christmas, because they don't have Boxing Day here, right? It isn't a thing. Everyone goes back to work. They start throwing the Christmas trees out on the sidewalk.
00:02:22
Speaker
So what I did was I didn't buy one for Christmas, so as soon as one went out on the sidewalk on the next unboxing day, I grabbed one, pulled that in, and then I just put post-it notes all over it. I got some yellow and some pink post-it notes. I just stuck them all over it, and that was my Christmas tree. Nice. I like that.
00:02:47
Speaker
I can't remember the last time I bought anything. I'm a real Grinch. People call me Grinch. One of the things I really enjoy doing was I like
00:03:06
Speaker
going with my wife to go and get a Christmas tree. That is a thing that gives me joy. And it becomes a tradition, and I like traditions.
00:03:23
Speaker
And my wife will always try and get a tree that's bigger than the space we have. It isn't a fight, it's just like a funny disagreement we have. And so I get the tape measure out and I go, look,
00:03:44
Speaker
It's nine foot. We can't get anything over nine foot. And then we go down there, she'll be looking at the 10 foot Christmas trees. But this year, our tree literally just hits the top of the ceiling, right? It's like the most maximum. So our tree was the highest that we could possibly get. Did she do the same thing when she was looking for a boyfriend?
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, she obviously fags. I'm like five foot seven. Right. All right. Yeah. Why is that a surprise? I knew that. I know. Right. Should people stick together? I think there's, yeah.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think I became a husband because I was so not like any other men that she would normally date.
Podcast Introduction with Hosts Paul and Marty
00:04:38
Speaker
Right. I was shorter than normal. I was weirder than normal. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's a weird stuff, doesn't it? I've had that.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's another episode. Anyway, so, yeah. Let's smooch over to the intro. Yeah, let's smooch over. So, welcome to ADHDville.
00:05:22
Speaker
out of sync as we should be as we should be as we should be I think that's coming up on a podcast about being out of sync and general music things and yeah anyway hello I'm Paul Thompson I was recently diagnosed with ADHD after 56 years of thinking why the fuck do I always feel like an alien
00:05:47
Speaker
That was so much better than last week. You rolled through that brilliantly. And hello, I am Marty West.
00:05:57
Speaker
And I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2013, which coincidentally is the year that now this may surprise you Paul. So 2013 was the year that the French government ruled that the women of Paris could wear trousers or pants or pantaloons, if you like.
00:06:24
Speaker
So in 2013, they could wear pants again legally. They couldn't. Oh, legally. Oh, okay. It was like some, it was, it was a decree. So in 1800, there was a decree went out that the women of Paris couldn't wear pantaloons and dressed like a man. Right.
00:06:53
Speaker
And then it took 213 years for them to repeal that. You know what? And weirdly, if you so before 1800 in Paris, if you want, if you're a woman and you wanted to wear trousers, pataloons, you had to ask the local police.
00:07:18
Speaker
No. So you had to get permission from them. Talking of old laws, do you know there's still a law in England that if you're knighted, so you become, in your case, Sir Martin West, arise Sir Martin West, you could legally take a herd of sheep over Tower Bridge?
00:07:41
Speaker
Oh yeah. If that was your want. Yeah. If that was my will. All right. Well, I shall bear that in mind Paul.
00:07:53
Speaker
When you're knighted. So anyway, we're just two mates who by coincidence or not after 39 years of friendship discovered that we're co ADHDers. Now it's really important to say this is an entertainment podcast about adult ADHD and does not substitute for our individualized advice from qualified health professionals. No, no, no. So don't take any advice from us. Nope. God's sake. No. Jesus Christ.
00:08:20
Speaker
no don't do that we're just here to kind of we're just here to kind of all inclusive ADHD punk bench with room for everyone including your doppelgangers your alter egos your body doubles and your chaperones
00:08:36
Speaker
Okay, still here, grab your pop-tarts and let us take you to ADHDville, a battery town that we've created in our minds. Minds. When we'd like to explore different parts of ADHD. And we start off as always here.
00:08:57
Speaker
at the town hall in the mayor's office, where we, the joint mayors of ADHD, Phil, take care of business.
Weekly Reflections and Routines
00:09:06
Speaker
So first on the agenda is how was our weeks, I should say our week, right? How was our week? Our co-week. Was it good? Was it bad? Was it ugly? It's all kind of, I can start. All right, you go, you go.
00:09:27
Speaker
if you if you want to correct your thoughts. My week has been I would say in between good and bad. Like I'm I'm still managing to kind of do all the normal things like feed Eddie and and cook lunch and do do stuff but the
00:09:53
Speaker
I'm so used to being at my desk all day doing work and now work is very sporadic that I'm not at my desk and I'm trying to remember like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be like doing these other tasks. And then I forget and I just find myself wandering back to my desk again.
00:10:15
Speaker
So I've decided to do is I'm trying out a new tech tech technique, which is the same place. So this could be good for me. Right. So I have. So at nine thirty, I'm I'm basically writing down all that into it today. The things I want to get done that that day. And this list is going to sit not on the fridge door like it used to be. It's going to sit here at the desk. So when I.
00:10:43
Speaker
When I feel the need to come back to my desk, which is almost like my little home spot, it's like where I feel comfy, I will come back here naturally and then I will look at the to-do list to remind myself that I shouldn't be there.
00:11:02
Speaker
And then what I'm gonna do is I have this timer, right? I have this little timer here, which I know I've shown before, but I can set it to like 10 minutes. Now I'm gonna give myself 10 minutes, a 10 minute break, right? And I can do whatever I want for 10 minutes. I can go read emails, I can go on TikTok, whatever it is. And then when that little beep goes off,
00:11:22
Speaker
It will snap my brain to, oh, I should be doing something else. And then I've got the list, my to-do list right in front of me and I'll go, okay, let's go and do this task. So that's my, that's, I'm trying that out this week. I've, cause I've got worse recently at doing my to-do list.
00:11:44
Speaker
It's like as if it's at the top of the right to-do list, like please Paul today do the to-do list. It's like points one, two and three.
00:11:53
Speaker
I even had this thought, you know, like the last podcast, I said, you know, I was down a two hour drive and I've like really clear thoughts and like, you know, like five piece driving. I had the idea of trying. This may sound like complete lunacy. I think I just need to make my to-do list. Uh, I'm going to do it on my whiteboard that I've got. I need to make it big. I think I need to make it big.
00:12:21
Speaker
No, I think there is something in that. There is something in that. Right. I'll try that. My wife was talking about getting a over large calendar for doing the same thing where you write stuff on it. Yeah. It's not small, it's big. And I think because we are quite visual people, and you know what I was saying the other week about
00:12:45
Speaker
but we take all the details in and everything can get lost in the details. Whereas if something's bigger, it will stand out more and we have more chance of actually seeing it and remembering it and it being at, you know, more front of mind. Okay. Okay. I'm going to try that. That sounds like homework that we've set ourselves that we won't do as ever. Yeah. Well, no, I am, I am, I am, I'm, I'm quite good at
00:13:16
Speaker
at least trying something. So I'm going to try it. So the homework for this week is my little
00:13:25
Speaker
routine, yours is to put your to-do list on the larger whiteboard. I would also suggest sometimes it's like if your task
00:13:47
Speaker
normally has multiple subtasks in it, right? So it's like, so if your task was, I don't know, you know, take out the trash on a stupid one, but there's a bunch of subtasks that probably has to go in. This is a bad example. We're in Europe, the subtasks would be separating.
00:14:09
Speaker
Right. The states are a bit different, but we have to separate pretty much everything. Right. So my sub... Oh, there's a cat in the background walking across the keyboard in a very classic meme way. There you go. My son's cat is called PP.
00:14:29
Speaker
All right, that's hilarious. So for me, if I take the trash out, my first task is to go and get a spare trash bag. So I go into where I keep all the bin liners, if you like, and I take that out so that then I go to the trash can and then I empty the trash out and put the new
00:14:50
Speaker
new one in, right? So I know this is a bad example, but sometimes when you write down your to-do list, sometimes it's just writing down the simple first step of the thing.
00:15:05
Speaker
So it doesn't feel like it's a big task. All you're doing is writing the first little sub-task that you have to do. So it actually feels like, oh, this could only take, you know, it looks small and you can easily do it. But what happens is that once you start that thing, once you do the first task, then you go, oh, I might as well do the second and the third and I might as well.
00:15:32
Speaker
I think for me it's also, if it's like written small on a little post-it note, it's just too easy to ignore. Yeah. Just gets lost in the background clutter. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Alrighty. My week, I had another incident at the pharmacy this
Prescription Challenges in Italy
00:15:50
Speaker
morning. Oh God. The prescriptions here in Italy, you know, because it's the type of drug that it is, Ritalin.
00:15:59
Speaker
A, I'm a bit paranoid. People look at me like, wow. They're not. Yeah, they're not. They're not. They don't care. They are literally thinking about their own stuff. Yeah. But it turns out it's about the fourth time that they've said that the prescription wasn't written out properly. And I have to go back to my doctor and get it properly written out.
00:16:26
Speaker
I had to really hold myself and stop myself from getting angry because it just happened. God, in Italy, it's just crap. It's just really crap. The one in your town or the one in the next town over? No, this is a new one in Turin.
00:16:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So, um, they actually showed me, they were actually really nice. I was just really frustrated and they said, Oh, if he said, if we gave you this with the type of prescription you've given us now, they, the sudden, whatever authority to do with pharmacies, they could actually close us down.
00:17:09
Speaker
Right. I don't want that to be honest, you know, and we had a bit of a laugh about it. Um, and I really don't, they showed me what they, how, how, how, uh, what they wanted. It's basically three prescriptions, exactly the same, all written out by hand. Okay. Right.
00:17:31
Speaker
And they said, oh, if you like, we can call your doctor now and tell her how she should have done the prescription.
00:17:41
Speaker
Um, and so, uh, okay, then, yeah, called them and, and they probably said, Oh, okay. They said, okay, if that's how you want to do, we'll, we'll prepare it for him. Oh, God, though, you know, communications, what you need. If you want to be the best, if you want to be the best.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yeah. Record breaker. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I said to them, well, you could mention.
00:18:17
Speaker
Because they knew it was Ritalin. And I said, well, put yourself in my shoes. I have ADHD brain. I don't have to deal with this kind of craziness. This is like the fourth or fifth time that something's not been right. And I said to the last time that someone told me this, I went to another pharmacy around the corner. And they said, oh, would you want it tomorrow or the day after? Perfect. Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
There you go. Right. So that means that when you're next to get a prescription written out, you can then make sure you can remind them of what then what you need. Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But then it depends on what region you're in as well. Right. They said, oh, these particular regulations are particular to this region. And I live in another region next to this one and the regulations are different. So there you go. It sounds a little bit like the states here where you have different laws.
00:19:25
Speaker
Each state has its own laws. So there's a federal layer that sits over the top, but you can almost think of each state as being a separate country.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's the same in the UK at the moment with how each county deals with ADHD is quite different. As are the waiting lists. There are some waiting lists. I think the record at the moment seems like Gloucestershire or something like that. The waiting list is five years. ADHD? Five years. Yeah. Five years. That's amazing, isn't it?
00:20:04
Speaker
Some people are saying, not only to the waiters five years, they said, you can't actually go on the waiting list at the moment. It's full. They're so not set up for this. It sounds like they're also, you can almost argue that they're, maybe they're willfully. I think so. I think it's political.
00:20:32
Speaker
I think it's like, um, uh, some kind of crap, uh, level of, uh, right wing politics way of saying, uh, you know, doubting the way of putting doubt into, you know, whether ADHD is actually a real thing or not. I had the same suspicion mate. Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah. Because if someone's like got schizophrenic, you know, if there was schizophrenic, it's like, oh, sorry, I haven't got any drugs for you today. Can you imagine?
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I know. I know. All right. Well, uh, where are you taking these two days? You're taking this today, Martin. All right. Well, okay. I am. All right. So let's get, get in our mayor's car and we're going to go over to the library and learn about habit stacking. So let's jump in the car. Um,
00:21:44
Speaker
you know i think our car does is sounding better because i did have it tuned last last week so um i'm i'm convinced that it's sounding uh that's uh did sounds yeah sounding better yeah habit stacking what's that all about what tell me tell me all about that
00:22:09
Speaker
I said to just put a little bit of context for our listeners and viewers.
Building Habits and Structure
00:22:15
Speaker
I told Martin before we started, I've got nothing on this because I don't get it. I get what it's about. Nothing's resonated for me in terms of like, I understand how it could be useful.
00:22:31
Speaker
Nothing, I've researched it and I've had different people with different ideas of how to do this. Nothing. It just like, it's like tumbleweed for me. It's like, I don't get it. All right. Yeah. So anyway.
00:22:47
Speaker
You know, and right. So this may resonate with you. It may resonate with, uh, our pod, our fellow ADHD Phil citizens. Um, who knows, but, uh, let's see. Uh, well, let's first, uh,
00:23:08
Speaker
explain why habit well what habit stacking is i guess yeah and that is uh very simply is to is to um is to use one habit to build another habit onto that and when you can stack up habits you can reach a goal he's frozen um
00:23:38
Speaker
Now, for example, my best example of this, and I know I've talked about it before, which is brushing my teeth, right? Normally not great at it. Oh, there's your camera glove. Oh, there we are. Back, that was weird.
00:24:09
Speaker
So every time I try to get to the goal of brushing my teeth, I would fail, right? Okay, you brush your teeth first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and that's what you do.
00:24:24
Speaker
And it would never kind of quite work out that I could never make that habit stick for whatever reason. So if you listen to the podcast before you heard me saying, every time I go to the bathroom now, I made a rule for myself.
00:24:46
Speaker
He's offline. You'll be back in a minute. I'm just going to fill. So every time I go to the bathroom, I brush my teeth.
00:24:58
Speaker
And that may be in the middle of the day, maybe whenever. Are you here Paul? Yes. All right. Cool. Just checking. So that was like, that was a habit stack. So when I get into the bathroom, I've stacked on, you know, going to the toilet, which isn't, you know.
00:25:22
Speaker
you could argue that isn't really a habit but now it's like oh I'm I'm in the bathroom now I brush my teeth and then I stacked onto that I take some water up
00:25:38
Speaker
every night I take some water up for my wife up and I put it in the bathroom as the last thing that I do for her, if you like. So now I find myself in the bathroom at night and now I have to brush my teeth, right? So now I brush my teeth every night. And now, because my wife has clocked onto that,
00:26:05
Speaker
Sometimes I I I won't I'll leave the herb her water on the stairs and she can pick up as she goes Up upstairs and she now goes. Oh, no mine. Can you can you take my my my water up upstairs for me? and um Because i'm a people pleaser and you know, and i'm i'm a nice guy like I think I I I I do I then take
00:26:33
Speaker
the the water off the stairs go into the bathroom put it in the bathroom and now i have to brush my teeth because of the series of rules that i have now made myself so okay so now i i i brushed my teeth at least once or twice during the day and at night right so that's like a a
00:26:56
Speaker
a habit stack and I almost can't wait to go back to the dentist now because they're going to be like, what the hell have you been doing mine? Well, these teeth look amazing. And so that is, you know, there are other examples. So for example, this is why I like having a
00:27:19
Speaker
a dog is quite a good thing because I habit stack off of Eddie. So he gets me out of bed because he wants to be fed and I go downstairs and then there's a whole bunch of habits that I've stacked on top of each other. I feed Eddie and then put the kettle on and then while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil, I empty the dishwasher
00:27:46
Speaker
because I'm just standing there anyway. And then I make tea for myself and I make Trisha's coffee. And then while I'm waiting for my tea to brew, then I go around the kitchen, I clear up. I start to think about if there's something I need to get out of the freezer to defrost. So there's all these
00:28:11
Speaker
habits that I've stacked in on top of each other. So I do one thing then the next thing and then when I've done that, I take Eddie out for a walk and then I'll come come back and then I have to go upstairs to my desk and write out my days to do this. And so that's, that's the latest thing that I've stacked onto that whole thing.
00:28:35
Speaker
I've got a picture of Eddie wearing a t-shirt with a ring on it, habit stacker.
00:28:43
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, no, just to have twisted habits, Tucker. Twisted habits, Tucker. That's that is there is. Yeah, I mean, dogs are dogs are quite good for and and the reason why. Stacking habit is important is because it builds structure in my day. So and the more structure I have, the less
00:29:13
Speaker
exhausting chaos happens or, you know, or not only that, or it, it, it could be like, I just sit around and do F4 and then I feel bad about doing nothing. Right. And then more of my goals get done that way. And these are just the day to day, day to day things. So this is what it's about really.
00:29:40
Speaker
So here's the thing, I know that I really badly need structure at the moment, because I'm kind of rattling around and just, I don't know, it feels like I'll get worse at the moment, but you know, it's like early on in the diagnosis, the diagnosis, but I know I need the structure, but I just don't do it. It's quite strange. It's like, I remember when I was like,
00:30:05
Speaker
You know, I was like in therapy and I was told, Oh, you know, it's really good. It really works for you. Keep a diary. It really works. If you do this, it really works. You do that. I didn't do any of them. Even if I knew it would be good for me.
00:30:20
Speaker
I wonder if I just need something that helps me click, you know, that will put me into doing me into doing that kind of thing. Right. Yeah, because I think that there's a rebellious part of
00:30:37
Speaker
of us all, right? I don't know whether it's like a degenerate thing or something, but if someone tells me of a hack, then I'm less likely to do it than if I thought of it myself. But I think the important thing is, one,
00:30:59
Speaker
Is that we will have to recognize that habits are important because Without them things things generally will spiral downwards like structure is our friend Yeah, and So I think it's about finding your own personal way of Of
00:31:28
Speaker
making something click as you say. So for me and brush my teeth, it was like I made one simple rule that I did. I'm going to commit to this simple stupid rule and then I'm going to see if I can make that a habit and now it's become a habit, then I can stack other things on top of it and I can build something.
00:31:55
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Because what happens? Yeah. Go on. Yeah, no, keep in mind, you mentioned before Martin about how for you, you know, your, your experience with school that you didn't, your ADHD symptoms didn't really pop out and, you know, show themselves until after school because at school you had structure.
00:32:20
Speaker
And it's actually something that was had repeated the other day by someone online, psychologist, saying, yeah, it often really often happens that people don't have any signs at all of ADHD until they finish school years. Right. Yeah, I think that was Dr.
00:32:42
Speaker
Armstrong. Right. I think I saw the same tick tick. Oh, there you go. Yeah, exactly. And so yeah, I know I've got to do it. I've got to find that thing that helps me click.
00:32:54
Speaker
And, um, yeah. Right. Because, you know, I think his point was, was that late diet, like you, you can not even think you have ADHD because you've got a lot of structure around your life. And then as soon as that structure goes away, you know, because you leave school or, you know, yeah, you find that, um, that, uh,
00:33:22
Speaker
you find it very difficult to build structure yourself like you need an external structure from the outside imposing its will on you if you like and then you agree to that and then you use that as a structure and as soon as that structure goes away it's difficult
00:33:43
Speaker
for an ADHD sometimes to actually make your own structure, build it yourself. It's funny, it's come to mind. I remember hearing it was a famous American writer, can't remember who it was. He didn't actually have habits stacking as much as he had props. He found that if he put a certain pair of shoes on, it would help him to start writing.
00:34:15
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cause cause how, how often have you gone, right? I've got this creative project, right? I've got to do some thinking, but I can't do that until I clear my desk. Right. I need this, this desk to be clear. I need my pencils over here. My pens over here. I need a stack of paper. I need it. And then you can't be in your pajamas. Right. There is right. You, you, you basically build a little.
00:34:45
Speaker
a little environment where you feel like you're back in control, right? You know, that you've de-cutted and somehow that kind of, that calm, that physical effort can calm you down and then you can go, right, now I can think. And that
00:35:06
Speaker
That is a kind of a habit stack, right? Which is like, in order to attain the goal of me creative thinking, there's a couple of steps I need to do to get there, right? So there's a habit of, right, I've got to clear my desk. That's one habit. I've got to get all my equipment, my pens and my whatever I need.
00:35:27
Speaker
out and get that. So that's the second habit. And then you can then do the, do the work, right.
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah, I must admit, a certain amount of my habits are created a little bit by, not so much shame. It's like, if the kitchen is in there, because my girlfriend, she's out the door at, you know, quarter past seven in the morning, and she comes back about midday or so. And I go down, I make myself a coffee, you know, take my time. But I clean the kitchen.
00:36:03
Speaker
you know, I like to think the kitchen is spotless, so that I can, you know, wherever I need to do that morning, I could like, my mind is freed up. And I know that my girlfriend, she comes home and she's like, oh, the kitchen is sorted. Yeah, so yeah.
00:36:21
Speaker
So, I mean, it's seen in that kind of ballpark, isn't it, that kind of area? Yeah, because what you're doing is like, you know, your girlfriend leaves, then you go, right, well, my habit is then I will now
00:36:35
Speaker
Once I'm in the kitchen for the first time in the morning, I make myself coffee, then the next thing is I will start looking around and clearing up, right? So that's your second little habit stack.
00:36:54
Speaker
In theory, build things on top of that. You can then go, right, well, what am I next going to do? What is the next thing? After I've got the kitchen right, that's it. What is it that I do? I guess what we're talking about is we're kind of admitting to ourselves that none of these tasks that we're talking about are, you're not going to get any dopamine hits from them, are you? No.
00:37:21
Speaker
Right? No. No. None. Ever. Zero. Well, not ever.
00:37:27
Speaker
I would argue that I feel good about brushing my teeth, right? And I feel good about the process that I, this weird ass process that I managed to put in place to make that happen. And I feel good that it happened. So there is dopamine to be had in looking back and kind of going, yeah.
00:37:53
Speaker
I was now bad at this. I'm now quite good at all. I'm better at this. It doesn't even have to be good at it. Maybe the hit, the positive you're getting out of that actually goes back to what we talked about in our last episodes. You're getting a good feeling out of taking care of yourself.
00:38:15
Speaker
Oh yeah. This is something that I'm notoriously bad at, which is like, yeah, self-care, right? Self-care. Bad, bad at it, trying to get better at it. And you can, and you should feel good when you do take care of yourself and your surroundings.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah, because imagine if you didn't clean the kitchen, right? And it was just a mess and it just got worse and right. It just felt bad. And then your girlfriend comes home and goes, what the fuck is that? I can't even do anything in the kitchen because it's all just the stuff in the sink and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So, you know, habits build structure that save you from exhausting chaos. Yeah.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, there's that element of avoiding, you know, not as a stimulus because oh, because I did it. If I'm honest, I often do it because I want to avoid the shame of like, oh, fuck, you know, it's like, you know, they're thinking, Oh, God, yeah, okay, Paul, I know your ADHD, but
00:39:25
Speaker
Right. You know, I would like if that's okay. Right. If you just recognize it, that's what makes you do it.
Balancing Shame and Motivation
00:39:31
Speaker
That is a way of doing it. There's the carrot and the stick and that's a stick way. And that's okay.
00:39:42
Speaker
But you know, I know that it's, it's not fun, that the only, if the only motivation to do anything is shame, right? That, you know, like, no, I mean, it's not, it's not healthy, you know, so some of it can can be but you know, like, if I can find a way to feel good about it and go, well, I didn't want to do that, but I did it.
00:40:08
Speaker
Or I now have a new habit and I feel good about that. You know, it is that giving yourself, you know, be fucking kind to yourself, give yourself a pat on the back. Even if you did it anyway because you didn't want
00:40:26
Speaker
you know, it because you didn't want the kitchen to be terrible and shame. Yeah. But I think, well, I mean, I do. It's fine. It's a classic with ADHD. At times it's like you're on it and you find yourself scrubbing the kitchen with a toothbrush.
00:40:44
Speaker
And because of that particular moment, for no particular goddamn reason, for no logic on that particular day, in that particular boat, like you're on it and the kitchen never looks so good. And you're, you're even like getting out the specialist cleaning products. Cause you want, you want to, you want to make the, the stainless steel, like, likes ping and pop. Right. Yeah. You know,
00:41:07
Speaker
you want the kitchen to burn a hole in your eyeballs it's so clean exactly exactly and you're like high on the chemicals for half a day mm-hmm yeah yeah I mean which is a stimulant but not a healthy one so yeah that that's that's the that's that's the classic
00:41:29
Speaker
you know getting your dopamine hit off of off of you know you get a huge hit from doing something like yeah yeah like like cleaning and sometimes at least that happens for me when
00:41:45
Speaker
things get really bad right at some point sometimes it's there's this thing where um you just kind of go that's it i i i can't take it anymore i've got to clean this or i've got to sort this thing out whatever it is and just and you'll spend like you know four hours five hours a day or whatever just uh just killing it but yeah yeah
00:42:12
Speaker
To your point, this is really about getting through the boring stuff, right? It's the stuff that you don't want to do, that you have no dopes for, that you have to do. Don't want to do it, have to do it. How do you get there?
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah. And this is a decent, decent, you know, decent part of civilian life, you know, and household life, you know, do your part, for God's sake, you know. Well, well, yeah. And it's also just general self self care, right. And it's and it's care for the people around you, your family or, you know, your wife, girlfriend, whatever, boyfriend, partner.
00:42:59
Speaker
You know, and it's, you know, it is, you know, that is, that is loving yourself. Like, you know, that's, and the more you do of that, the better you feel about yourself. Yeah. Yeah. But in my, in my case, I've kind of, I've so little structure at the moment, and I actually got to point where I'm craving it.
00:43:28
Speaker
which is scary in itself, because usually when I'm, I don't know, because I usually, I would avoid going to that, my old pattern that I crave structure, then I have fucking ate it. Right. Right at the moment, I really need it. I really need structure, which needs to come and it won't be in daily chores. It'll be, I need to find a, like a job.
00:43:53
Speaker
You know, so I'm out of the house, you know, do my thing. I'm, you know, focusing on other stuff. Would you then say, you know, knowing about yourself that
00:44:09
Speaker
external structure is a lot easier than creating your own internal structure for yourself.
Challenges of Personal Structure
00:44:15
Speaker
So you could say, right, well, I'm so annoyed or fed up with my lack of progress in creating my own structure that I've now got to the point where I need to find an external structure, like getting a job, for example, then that will impose
00:44:36
Speaker
structure on my life. So it, so structure is good. So that's a tick. Um, you know, but then it doesn't solve the issue of, of how do I, how do I build my own personal structure myself that I, that I stick to. So, yeah. So if that's,
00:45:04
Speaker
So both paths are fine to a point, I think, because structure's good. If you get it externally, then that's good. It has its own ups and downs, right? It has its own pluses and downsides. And then imposing it to yourself is always going to be the better way, because it doesn't matter whether you've got a job or you don't have a job.
00:45:25
Speaker
There's some sort of internal code that you live by, if you like, around Paul Thompson, personal character. Yeah, I guess my interpretation of that is like, you know, I mean,
00:45:42
Speaker
I've personally found it always easy to like, get structure in my professional life, because I'm really scared to let people down. And I'm a bit of a people pleaser. And so, you know, in my work, I'm really, I'm pretty structured, I'm pretty good. My thought patterns are all over the place, but everything else around it is structured, because it has to be right. Yeah, because if everything around
00:46:06
Speaker
my thoughts, which are chaos, if everything around that is chaotic, then I can't do my job properly. So I've learned through by trial and error to be organized. It's like, if you look at my desktop and the way I organize by projects, it's, it's really structured. It's really good, right? Better than most people's, you know,
00:46:28
Speaker
I'm sure it's lovely, Paul. It's lovely. Thanks, Paul. But yeah, but I think what you're making is like, oh, so what if Paul, you also got better, at the very least, at being more accountable to yourself and the people that you live with, in terms of putting in structure?
00:46:54
Speaker
Yeah, right. I think it's just it's just an ongoing thing, right? No one is born knowing how to do it.
00:47:04
Speaker
And it's really boring to try and implement and I'm not great at it. But I kind of do realize myself that the more I do it, the happier I am and the less reliant I am on external external structure because the danger is and I'm not saying this is this is aimed at you, but it just kind of came to my mind that
00:47:30
Speaker
The danger is that, and perhaps I do this, which is why I thought of it, I look to my partner to impose that structure on me, on that external structure on myself. And then my wife would go, well, I'm not your mum. I shouldn't have to do that. And you're going, yeah, you're right. I should be finding my own
00:48:00
Speaker
Yes. Structure, so. Yeah. Yeah, I can't stand, I don't like people giving me structure. I really respond badly to people trying to tell me how to organize my day. I'm not good at it.
00:48:17
Speaker
Oh, right. But would you ask it, would you kind of go, oh, you know, can you organize or can you do some thinking for me and push me to do X, Y, Z? Yeah. Well, this week I had a conversation with Mina about body doubling, for instance.
00:48:40
Speaker
because I need to study something. I've got some material arriving that I need to study. And I've asked me now in anticipation of arriving next week when I need to like concentrate on it. She's in the room with me and I double down on it.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah. She doesn't have to do anything. Just be there. She's not like handing you bits of paper or asking you questions. Just be in the room, you can look at your phone, read a book, I don't know, watch TV, whatever.
00:49:21
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm getting better at it. I've always, I've been a type of person who always thinks I've got to do everything by myself. It doesn't actually work out too well, that way of approaching life. Right. Because at some point I find that, you're right, is that it doesn't work.
Self-Sabotage and Responsibility
00:49:42
Speaker
Whatever you're doing doesn't work and that
00:49:46
Speaker
it's not helpful. Like, like you're only self sabotaging yourself at some point, you think, well, I'm just doing this because I don't want to, you know, face up to the responsibility that I have as a, as an adult to actually have a shower, or whatever it is that you're not doing. Yeah. Even if sometimes you've got those difficult pieces, parts of your body to, you can't quite reach, especially when you get older. Right.
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah. So I will say like as a final thing about why it's habit stacking is because, and I probably mentioned this earlier, is that
00:50:33
Speaker
is that yeah how many times have you I just mean the pejorative you um how many times have you tried to do something and just fail at it all the time like oh I wish I was good at I don't know doing me taxes or or I was better at showering every day or I was better at um uh
00:50:58
Speaker
you know, organizing stuff or whatever it is and then just fail constantly at it.
00:51:06
Speaker
and never really getting a proper habit of stuff going. And that's because you start off at a level of no habit, right? And you have a goal that you want to hit. Like for me, it's like shower every day, right? That would be a goal that I have. But if I've got no habits in between, no habit and goal, I always fail.
00:51:36
Speaker
I always fail and that's because a normal person would just go oh yeah no you just wake up every day and you go and have a shower and whatever you just do it like what's the problem dude yeah smelly person get out of get out of here i mean i mean you know conf confessional
00:52:00
Speaker
I shower, my current habit stacking is I have no habit stack for showers, right? Basically, if I smell worse than the dog, I'd go and have a shower. Right. Okay.
00:52:18
Speaker
like who like eddie me eddie me oh oh it's me i'm spelling worse i i think i shall um so i have no so i have to build in i have to recognize that i'm not normal
00:52:36
Speaker
that I have ADHD, that I have to build in a series of habits that get me to have a shower every day. So that might be for example, I could add it on to when I take the easiest way that I can see is when I take my wife's water into the bathroom and I brush my teeth
00:53:06
Speaker
That is something I can habit stack off. I could then go, I will have a shower at that point. And sure, it isn't a shower in the morning because I can't find a way to make it in the morning, but I could have it in the evening.
00:53:23
Speaker
Yeah. That's a habit. That's a way. And actually, if I want to have a shower in the morning, the habit stack that I would do is if I go swimming in the swimming pool, I always have a shower afterwards. That's because you do, right? Well, I do anyway.
00:53:45
Speaker
So therefore, if I want to shower every morning, it means I have to go, right. Chlorine's not a famous, you know, body lotion cure. No. Oh, the chlorine.
00:53:57
Speaker
Oh, the chlorine. Oh, the smell of it. So, yes. So if I want to have a shower every morning and that was my goal, that the habit stack for me would be then right. Well, you have to go swimming every morning in order to get a shower. And if you want to go swimming every morning, then the habit stack to that would be after you walk the dog,
00:54:26
Speaker
The next thing you would do is to grab your swim bag and you go to the swimming. And in order for that to happen,
00:54:35
Speaker
The habit stack for that would be when I get back from the swimming pool, I have to put my towel and my swimwear in the washing machine so that it's ready for me. And then there's a stack of taking it out of there, putting it into the bag, putting the bag by the door so that then I can go to the gym so that they can have a shower in the morning.
00:54:59
Speaker
That's the sequence that you end up building. It might not make sense to a normal person, but it's a good habit stack because I go swimming, it's exercise, I have a shower. It's a win-win.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's all I've talked of confession. I've realized over the years that I'm a hell of a lot lazier than I ever realized. That's controversial word there lazy. Yeah.
00:55:38
Speaker
Well, explain, explain. Yeah. Well, what do you mean? Tell us about it, Paul. Yeah. Well, what comes to mind? What comes to mind? Sometimes it's because in the morning I could like, I could easily just like, especially in the winter or just stay in bed, you know, a couple of hours longer, you know, especially the weekend.
00:56:06
Speaker
And then I, and I always regret it. I always regret it. Um, because like, Oh God, it's a really nice day out and I haven't done a fucking thing all day. Um, so yeah, it's just a little lie. I've told myself over the years that I've recovered. Yeah. Lazy. I know what you're saying, Martin, but
00:56:24
Speaker
I'm, I'm lazier than I, I thought I was, if I'm honest. Right. I like to, I always like to think myself as being active and I can be, but yeah. Right. Cause I, cause I tend to think of it all as, yeah, no, I get the whole lazy thought thing. Um, but why not try
00:56:50
Speaker
a thought which is like, well, why did I not do anything this morning? Like if I think, if I remind myself that I have ADHD and that has an impact on my life, why
00:57:05
Speaker
Why did I not do much this morning? And and you could think about it and go, well, I didn't really get a good night's sleep last last night, so I feel tired and or it could be, well, how's my eating been or am I am I stressed about something? What is going on? So so the fault, if you like, isn't you not doing anything. It's well, what?
00:57:32
Speaker
led up to you not having the energy to do something. And then you go, right, well, well, that's a good point. And there's also, you know, that like, um, um, you know, if you really get, especially when you get older, Oh God, you know, if you, your tolerance for, for alcohol is reduced and I can have a serious effect on you as can massively your diet, especially when you get older.
00:57:57
Speaker
Um, you might have, uh, and reports, which is my version of, um, menopause, all kinds of stuff happens can happen. Yeah. And some people say it doesn't exist. Some people say it doesn't exist. Some people do. Um, general thing is that your men of a certain age of our age, basically, um, we should be taking supplements.
00:58:24
Speaker
Then you get people saying, oh yeah, you shouldn't take supplements. It's a complete con because if you eat the right fruit and vegetables, then blah, blah, the right diet. That's not true either. I spoke to actually an expert on this a couple of weeks ago. He said, no, that's not true at all because fruit and vegetables doesn't have the vitamins and minerals that it should have because of industrial production.
00:58:48
Speaker
neither does a lot of the meat, doesn't have the stuff that it should have. So actually in reality, the harsh realities we need to take supplements. And our rage. Right. And our rage, iron, really important stuff.
00:59:05
Speaker
vitamin D is like one of the big ones that has an impact on ADHD. I've been hard to myself about the lazy thing. I just need to take care of more care of myself, especially exercising and diet.
00:59:23
Speaker
Right. And I think it's just, it's just when you have that thought of like, Oh, I'm being lazy here. It's just going, I have ADHD. Why don't I have the energy? It doesn't look that you're lazy. It's just, you might be so, so if, for example, my wife's job is very demanding. So when Saturday rolls around,
00:59:46
Speaker
She's quite slow in the mornings to kind of like get up and do anything. And that's because she's just burnt out from the week. So she has to recover.
Finding Ease through Habits
01:00:03
Speaker
So we don't think, oh, you're being lazy. It's just like, it's, it's just recognizing that, uh, why don't you have the energy and you can look back and go, oh, I'm burnt out. It's been a tough week. I need some self care. I'd, uh, you know, I've not been sleeping, whatever it is.
01:00:24
Speaker
But it's it's not that you're being lazy. It's just You know, mentally exhausting, right? Right. So I think maybe as a part of me, it's like, you know, whilst I'm here in bed, you know, it's just like a calmer place, you know, so
01:00:52
Speaker
It's like you get out of bed and all of a sudden your mind becomes busy as hell again.
01:00:57
Speaker
Right. And the good thing about habits is that it takes the mental load off of you because it's just a habit that you do. Right. It's just a thing that you do. Right. So it's almost like bustle memory in, you know, more, you know, you do this thing, then you do the next thing. You don't have to think about it. So that mental, so it's less demanding of your price. You have more energy
01:01:26
Speaker
to do. It's funny you mentioned that because I remember once I had to organise a five day shoot for a global brand of like number one gym equipment maker and five day shoot, yeah. And God, was I on it? I was so organised for that shoot.
01:01:54
Speaker
I was super organised. I organised everything because it was an Italian brand and an Italian colleagues.
Maximizing Creativity and Free Time
01:02:03
Speaker
One guy said, oh, it's a bit too well in his way of doing things. It's too well organised. And I said to him, this goes back to what you just say, Martin, I find if I'm this organised, I could be way more creative afterwards because I know I've got everything sorted.
01:02:21
Speaker
Right. I've, I've, I've basically planned so that whatever happens, I've got a response and therefore I freer to be a creative director in that moment. Our directors like concentrate. Okay. On this shot, all I have to think about is get a great shot. Yeah. No, I, I, I.
01:02:47
Speaker
and the photo shoots I've done, it's exactly the same thing. So you've freed up your mind because you've organized it all. So your mind is not worrying about the organization of it. When you're actually on the shoot, you can actually think about the more creative stuff, right? You've got more energy for it. You've got more brain space to do it.
01:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So that structure freed me up. So therefore, if I could give myself structure in my personal life, I free myself up for maybe, you know, making the most of my free time when I have it.
01:03:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't that be a good thing? Yeah. It's like, yeah, just tied up around the fringes. It's just finding a way that works for you. That means you get the stuff that you need to get done, right? It doesn't have to be 100%. I don't think anyone's looking for perfect. But if you can get the important things,
01:04:10
Speaker
taken care of then that's a win yeah nice yeah all right for the win there we go habit stacking for the win all right well here's another win i'm gonna we're gonna jump back into our finely tuned and recently vacuumed mayor's car and uh make our way over to the post office
01:04:45
Speaker
That sounds so much better, doesn't it?
Light-hearted Stories and Wrap-up
01:04:48
Speaker
Night and day. Night and day, mate. It is. It's like just grease those cocks. Oh, it's just the cocks. It's just purring. So, yeah, we're at the post office, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah. Can't tell because it's a really shitty room that we're in.
01:05:12
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Have you ever been to a nice post office? No. What does post office mean? This is a really nice post office. I once went into a post office and it was completely empty. It was not a soul in there.
01:05:32
Speaker
but they had a new system for, like, electronic system for getting your turn, okay? But there was no one there, so I didn't get a ticket with a number. So I just went up to the nearest person that was free, and she said, have you got a ticket? At which point, you know, sound of
01:05:53
Speaker
of, um, drift tumbleweed. So no, so, so she made me go back to the entrance of the post office ticket and went back to her. Oh man. Hey home. Um,
01:06:10
Speaker
So your feedback is really vital to us, it says here. And we will be reading all your comments as we accumulate them on our future podcast, like this one from Ross Newman on TikTok, who says, Martin,
01:06:27
Speaker
Because he says, I love what you're doing, guys. Well, I love what you're doing. And you now have someone who listens to the podcast. So that's how we know that he's a genuine listener because we actually are a couple of, first couple of pods with like, we had no listeners at all. Of course we didn't. So it's like, oh, come on. So thanks Ross Newman.
01:06:54
Speaker
I don't know where you live, but anyway, it doesn't matter. We don't care where you live. No, it's really appreciated. It does make a huge difference, so thanks for that. Absolutely. All right, so let's jump back in the car and we're going to make our way back to the Mayor's Town Hall.
01:07:16
Speaker
Oh, everywhere's such a short distance away in ADX TV. It's incredible, wasn't it? It's a small town, but a lot goes on. It's not a metropolis. It's not a metropolis. No. All right, so we're back in the town hall just for the last meeting of the day, first on the agenda.
01:07:36
Speaker
is for me to tell you that ADHDville is delivered fresh every Tuesday to all purveyors of fine podcasts please subscribe to the pod and rate us most magnificent yes and feel free to correspond at will in our comments but wait there's more
01:07:59
Speaker
If you wish to see a beautiful, beautiful face is Sally Forth. Sally Forth. Or indeed the TikTok is. Who is Sally Forth? Oh, is it? Yeah, does that come from Sally? Sally Forth. I believe it just means like go forth. Sally, I guess, is a way of moving from one thing to another.
01:08:27
Speaker
The opposite of saying, desist, desist with your, yeah, okay, 74th, nice, like that. 74th. All right, and if you feel so inclined, pick up a quill, if you will, and email us at ADHDville at gmail.com. Nice. And as we're kind of well over our hour,
01:08:55
Speaker
Uh, I would suggest, uh, well, cause we, cause we've already given ourselves some, some homework, right? So we've got some homework. So we did that at the top of the show. Yeah. So we've got a home homework for the week. I'm going to try and do the thing that I've already forgotten about and you're going to do the thing that I've forgotten. And so it just remains for me.
01:09:21
Speaker
or for us rather to dance our way out of the podcast stage left and say, thanks for being here. Check out any show notes for any random links that we may put in there. Visit us on the YouTubers, the Cupboard of Friends, known as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. But in the meantime, be fucking kind to yourself. Ciao, ciao, ciao.
01:09:50
Speaker
There, says the mayor. That's that.