As October comes to a close, so does ADHD awareness month. As someone diagnosed in the last year, I wanted to openly share a little more on what I am learning about my ADHD brain and how this shows up in the workplace. Today I want to type about the joys of planning!
My brain is not great at thinking a long way in advance… this ADHDer lives very much in the day to day looking for those instant gratification dopamine hits. Often, we are all reminded to live in the present, so when can living constantly in the present be a bad thing…
In one word - planning. In the last few months, I realised I never have had a life plan or a five year plan…. I make life decisions pretty impulsively but never really fully understanding the longer-term element to anything I do… my son was 4 when I looked at him and realised that there was no going back. A thought maybe I might have considered before I chose to have children! I will add I am very much pleased I did 😊
I'm not good with planning… for a start, time is a concept that is alien to me. Is it happening now? If it’s not, the best question is am I really interested in it? If yes, it might grab my attention. The next question is: is the deadline tomorrow? Then I will go into hyper focus to complete something. I am one of those people that wrote my university dissertation in the 72 hours before it was due. The majority of the focused work I do is “just in time”.
Recently my husband and I decided that we would replaster the living room. And whilst we did that, we’d add a wood burning stove. From the first thought to starting the work was about 3 weeks. The ADHD brain does not wait. I had trades booked in without having all the relevant steps lined up. It created a pressure to get the right people in in the right time scales. In one week, we had to paint, have the stove fitted, the carpet put down all before the furniture arrived on the Thursday. It got done. Some people would hate to work this way, for me it got something I wanted doing done quickly and I can now move onto the next thing… (Sorry husband!)
So, when asked to write out a six-month plan, I find it really hard…. I sort of know some of the elements of what I need to deliver in those six months - but I can’t break that into smaller steps with deadlines against it far in advance. My brain gets stuck. The plan then becomes a reinforcement of the fact I can't stick to a plan… and because I work in the present maybe I reprioritise, maybe something else comes up, maybe I forget. A structured plan becomes a reminder that my brain just doesn’t work this way.
The real benefit of an ADHD brain is its ability to think creatively, to problem solve in real time. Give an ADHDer a problem to solve and it’s likely they will come up with something, or connect something, others haven’t. We are in our element when given free rein to take a process, tweak a process and make it better. We recently launched a new recruitment process which I am really proud of. What I was given was the opportunity to talk through ideas and thoughts with others that were keen to do something really different. What we produced was really different, but we did it with the support of a team who were happy to break away from the norm. A corporate world often can stifle the opportunities to think truly creatively so I am grateful for the flexibility I have. Structure and rigidity are why many ADHDers struggle to stay in large organisations and why many are entrepreneurs working for themselves.
As someone who is neurodivergent, we spend time moulding to fit a world that isn't designed with our brains in mind. Despite my inability to be able to plan, I still need to plan as part of my role. My favourite quote about teaching fish to climb trees (Albert Einstein) springs to mind. I actually don’t know what the answer is - I am still figuring this out. So, I have the support of a coach to help me “fit” better and a husband who steps in to steer me in the right direction. Wherever possible at work, I delegate. In fact, the most successful work partnerships have been when I work alongside someone who loves a plan and keeps me on track without needing me in the detail!
I was asked the other day during an interview - what would I say to someone with ADHD who wanted to be promoted? My response was to find a role with the bits that you’re brilliant at… it is what I try to do and by doing so my hope is that people forgive the bits I’m not great at. I may not have a five year plan, or a life plan, or a detailed project plan, but I do know that when you get a group of neurodivergent thinkers solving a problem in the present the results are magical. And despite no plan - I never miss a major deadline.
About me - I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 42 after years of being capable in many areas but struggling with others which resulted in getting stuck in a cycle of anxiety and burning out… my ADHD diagnosis gave me instant relief that there was an explanation, but the journey now is one of learning and self-discovery of what does it mean to me and those around me – both at work and at home. These ramblings are what I am learning as I go, and I write to let you into the world of ADHD and work through my own lived experience and to provide hope that it is both possible to be Neurodivergent and successful – from now on for me, with the mask off.
