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Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.

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I'm your host, William Curb, and I have
ADHD On this podcast, I dig into the

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tools, tactics, and best practices to
help you work with your ADHD Brain.

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Hey, team.

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I've been thinking a lot about the
idea that thinking about planning

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isn't the same thing as planning.

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When we're just thinking about planning.

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Sure, we're imagining the steps, the
obstacles, the finished results, but

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we often get stuck in the execution gap
where we think we know exactly what we

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need to do, but we can't actually find
a way of getting ourselves to do it.

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We often view planning as this rigid
formal structure, a grand design that has

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to be perfect or it's not worth doing.

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But really planning is just
a gift for our future selves.

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It's about making decisions now so that
future us who is more likely than not

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tired and overwhelmed doesn't have to.

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So today we're going to be looking at the
mechanics of how we build those plans.

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We'll talk about the hierarchy of goals,
strategies, and tactics, and how we can

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stop letting the shoulds dictate how
we spend our limited cognitive energy.

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If you'd like to follow along on
the show notes page, you can find

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that@hackingyouradhd.com slash 2 9 1.

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All right, keep on listening to find
out how we can give our future selves a

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break by doing some of the lifting today.

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I.

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Let's start with a little bit about why
just thinking about planning isn't the

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same thing as planning for one, thinking
about a successful plan still releases

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dopamine as if we actually did that.

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Planning this tricks our brain into
feeling like the work is already

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done, which in turn decreases our
actual motivation to do the hard,

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boring work of creating a real plan.

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But when we're just thinking about
planning, we're also just relying entirely

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on our working memory because the plan
isn't out there on paper or a screen.

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It's in our brain, and our brain has
to keep all the pieces in there at

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once, creating cognitive overload.

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This can mean that we loop these thoughts
over and over again without actually

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moving forward with what needs to happen
next when we're actually planning.

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It's the physical act of offloading
all that mental stimulation.

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It's the transition from
thinking to deciding while

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still separating that decision.

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From the act of doing it, we're
moving the information from

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our internal working memory to
something a little bit more stable.

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A piece of paper, an app, a whiteboard,
whatever it is we're using as a tool.

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It's a set of instructions
for our future selves.

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But before we get into the how, I think
we need to think a little bit about the

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why we even want to do any planning,
because planning is something that can be

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very difficult for those of us with ADHD.

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While we often enjoy the spontaneity
of not having a plan, the choice to

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plan or not be at least considered.

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At its core planning is about
reducing cognitive load.

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While our brain is great at
processing information, working

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memory can make it incredibly hard
to hold all of that in place while

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working through the next steps.

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While planning itself is an executive
function, the process of planning helps

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offload some of the future executive
functions we might need, such as deciding

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what to do next on a project, or figuring
out how much time we have to do something.

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Every choice we make from what to eat
to which emails to answer takes up

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some of our cognitive energy . Planning
helps our future selves by taking

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on these decisions ahead of time.

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It allows us to confront the reality of
the limits of our 24 hour day and avoid

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some of the perils of time blindness.

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It can help break down some of those big,
scary projects into their tinier, smaller

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steps that provide more frequent wins.

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And what it really does is it allows us
to be more intentional with our time to

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be intentional with what we're doing so
that we can do the things that we actually

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want to do, rather than doing the things
that we impulsively feel like we should

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do in the moment, but perhaps don't
align with our long, long-term goals.

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And I've been thinking about this a lot
recently because I haven't been doing

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as much planning as I'd like to have.

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Part of that comes from
failure of planning to plan,

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but there are also other feelings of
resistance to planning coming up, feelings

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that I'll be boxed in by a plan and forced
to do things that I don't really want to

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do, which let's remember that I'm talking
about creating a plan for myself here.

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I get to choose all the
things that go into it.

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I could make a plan to eat ice
cream for every meal of the day.

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I mean, I won't, but I could.

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But what's really built up is what
I should be doing in my plans, what

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my plans should encompass, And this
is one of the reasons that thinking

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about planning is not the same
thing as planning in our heads.

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We tend to build things up in ways
that don't always reflect reality.

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When we engage in planning, reality
is perhaps the most important

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aspect that we should consider.

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As I said, I could make a plan to eat ice
cream for every meal of the day, but in

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reality, that would make me feel terrible

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.
When we're talking about planning, there
are a number of things that go into it.

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We have things like goals, strategies, and
tactics, and actually one of the earliest

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episodes I wrote for this podcast was
titled Goals, strategies, and Tactics.

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It's important that we're able to
distinguish between the three of these.

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Goals are the easiest to understand.

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It's our target.

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It's what we want, it's what
we are trying to accomplish.

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Strategy is a bit more ephemeral,
but it is our general approach

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to how we want to reach our goal.

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And then our tactics are the specific
physical actions we're using to execute

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our strategy when we're creating a plan.

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We're using all three to create a
cohesive idea of how we're getting

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from A to B. It creates a structured
approach to getting things done.

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Now, when we start planning, it's often
easiest with some kind of goal in mind.

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I'm more partial to focusing on
a process goal rather than an

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outcome oriented goal, for example.

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Goal instead of a goal of completing
a marathon, I'd rather have

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something more along the lines
of spend six weeks going on.

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Practice runs at least twice a week.

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The difference being that with process
oriented goals, I'm actually in control.

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If I'm going to hit the goal,

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Come race day.

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There could be all sorts of complications
that come up with completing the run.

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But with the process oriented goal,
I can basically control if I'm going

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on all those practice runs or not.

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With ADHD, we're known for being
consistently inconsistent, so focusing

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on the process, focusing on the things
that we can control makes a lot more

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sense when we're setting our goals.

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One of the most widely used goal
frameworks is smart goals, and that stands

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for specific, measurable, achievable,
relevant, and time bound . Basically,

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the idea is that when we're setting our
goals, we want them to be specific so

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that we know exactly what we're doing.

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We want them to be measurable so that we
can easily see if we are achieving them

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or not, and speaking of which, we want
to make sure that they are achievable.

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We don't want to be setting goals
that we can't follow through on

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because they are just beyond what
we're realistically able to do.

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they also need to be relevant
, meaning that they just need to

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align with our long-term, broader
objectives or core values.

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And finally, we want them to have a clear
deadline or timeframe so that we can

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have an urgency aspect for motivation.

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I don't think we really need to be too
specific in the framework, but these are

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kind of guidelines to use when setting
goals so that we are setting goals

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that we can actually follow through on.

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But as we talked about earlier,
our goal setting is only the

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top layer of the hierarchy here.

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Underneath that , we want to have our
strategy, the vibe and feeling of how

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we're going to go about doing these goals.

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Now with Smart Goals, we have a lot
more to work with here because we

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figured out a lot of these other
little pieces that we want to know.

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So if we created a smart goal of
say, I want to write 200 words for

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four days a week for three months.

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For strategy, we might think about
something along the lines of reducing

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the friction of getting started and then
that would have a layered on piece of our

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tactics of maybe having an accountability
buddy joining a writing group or using

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a specific writing playlist that you
only listen to when working on writing.

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And of course we can layer on
all sorts of other tactics to

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help us get where we want to be.

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We don't have to just do one thing.

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We should also be doing things like
making sure our writing time is in

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our calendar and anything else that
will help us along in the process.

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Now before we stray too far from
goals, I also want to talk a little

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bit about the why behind your goal.

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Often when we set goals, it's, this
is what I want and that makes sense.

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But we need to go underneath and ask,
why do I want this thing or outcome

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? Because often there are goals that we
set that are not really things that

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we want, but feel like we should want.

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And this goes back to what I was talking
about in the beginning of the piece

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about resisting planning because they are
things that we feel like we should do.

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Things that we feel like are expected
of us, but when we set goals that we

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don't really want, it makes it incredibly
hard for us to follow through on them,

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which of course makes sense because
with our interest based nervous system,

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we're not getting fired up to do things
we're not interested in achieving.

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And so these things.

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Easily fall by the wayside, but we also
have a lot of stuff that we want that

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still falls by the wayside because we
haven't tapped into that underlying

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piece of why it's so important for us.

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And so if we can connect with the why
we really want something, it can help

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activate our interest in it and our
desire to see it through to completion.

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I'm not saying achieving these goals
won't still be hard, but it gives us

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a little bit more sticktuitiveness
that we sorely need with ADHD.

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Really, the point I want to make with
this episode is that while planning can

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feel overwhelming and scary, it doesn't
have to be, instead of focusing on all

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the things that planning should be,
we can take some of that back and just

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think about the parts that we can do,
because that's really all planning is.

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It's looking at some future desire
we have and breaking it down into

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how we're going to get there.

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It doesn't have to be some grand
design that has everything written out.

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It can be simple and it should
be something that we feel

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like we can follow through on.

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Thanks for sticking with
me all the way to the end.

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Before you go though, let's
do a quick rundown of today's

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top tips one that feel good.

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Sensation of visualizing a
plan can actually be a trap.

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When we think about a successful
outcome, our brain releases dopamine

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as if the task is already done,
which in turn can kill the motivation

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needed for actual execution.

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Two.

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Instead of seeing a plan as a set of
rules that box you in, try viewing

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it as a way to protect your long-term
desires from your short-term impulses.

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We want to think of planning as a form of
self-advocacy rather than as a punishment.

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Three.

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If a goal feels like an
obligation rather than a genuine

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interest, it will likely fail.

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Digging into the why behind a goal can
help you find a hook that activates your

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interest, providing the sticktuitiveness
required to see it through.

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All right, that's it.

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Thanks for listening.

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I'd love to hear what you
thought of this episode.

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Feel free to connect with me
over@hackingyouradhd.com slash contact.

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If you'd like links or to read
this episode's transcript,

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you can go to the show
notesPage@hackingyouradhd.com slash 2 9 1.

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00:12:13,317 --> 00:12:16,977
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All right.

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and now for your moment of dad,
I was thinking about going on a

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diet, but I really feel like I have
too much on my plate right now.