139. The ADHD Productivity Trap You Don’t See

You’re working. You’re trying. You’re checking things off. And yet you still feel behind. If that sounds familiar, this episode is going to explain why.

I’m sharing a concept I use all the time with my coaching clients called intentional constraint, and how learning to limit your time, energy, and effort on purpose can completely shift your work-life balance (without working more). 

What You’ll Learn

• Why your brain treats almost everything like it’s equally important and how that’s quietly keeping you overwhelmed
• How ADHD patterns like hyperfocus and time blindness make you over-invest in the wrong tasks
• The exact questions to ask before starting a task so you stop over-performing on low-impact work
• Simple mindset shifts you can use in the moment to aim for done instead of perfect
• How to budget your time and energy intentionally instead of spending it by default

If This Resonates:

If you’re exhausted from doing “all the things” and still feeling behind...
If you’re tired of overworking just to keep your head above water...
If you suspect ADHD might be playing a role in how you manage your time...

I’d love to help you build structure that actually works for your brain.

📌 Book a free 1:1 consult here

And if you want more conversations like this, come join us inside my free Facebook group, Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists. That’s where I go live and coach through real scenarios just like this one.

Keywords (SEO)
ADHD productivity
Work-life balance for SLPs
Executive functioning strategies
Time management for busy moms
ADHD hyperfocus
Intentional constraint
Overworking with ADHD
Neurodivergent women and burnout

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

All right. Hello. Work-life balance for speech pathologists. Let's get this started.

Alright, now we are live. I think everything is working. Happy Friday. For those of you who are here in the Facebook group listening or watching live. Um, oh, we've got a visitor. 

Hold on. Hello. 

What's up buddy? 

Um, I wanna take them down here to show this. 

Okay, well let's keep the water away from the computer.

The computer? Yeah. All right. Go sit in the other room and I'll be out in a few minutes. 

Okay. 

Thank you. All right. That's what happens when we go live. So this, um, was about to say this episode, no. In a minute. So this episode is gonna be on the podcast, and it's also, I'm [00:01:00] obviously live here in the Facebook group.

So if you're not in the Facebook group, but you want to have access to Facebook Lives like this, where I'm talking about topics that are about time management, productivity, executive functioning, work-life balance, then make sure that you click the link in the show notes. So that you can join and you'll have access to any Facebook Live that I do.

In our group work-life balance for speech pathologists. But if you are here watching in the group, say hello. If you're watching live or the replay, say hi. Let me know where you're watching from. It always is more fun that way. So I obviously have my little guy, my youngest home sick today on day two of a sick day, and I am squeezing in this little Facebook live.

'cause I've committed to doing this going live once a week here in the group for right now during the month of February. And this is a topic that I [00:02:00] have been talking about a lot with my coaching clients. So this month, every week I'm coming into the group and going live, sharing something that is from a coaching call.

So I, if you don't know, I work one-on-one with SLPs. OTs PTs and we coach on work-life balance, time management, how to build a successful career and a successful personal life, home life at the same time. And so I wanted to share. Some insights from Sessions that I believe would be particularly valuable or useful for those of you who are on in the group or listening on the podcast.

And this is no different. So this topic that I wanna talk about is a concept called. [00:03:00] Constraint. And if you are one of my coaching clients, you probably have heard me talk about this before. We've probably coached on it, so this might be familiar to you, but I am willing to bet that if you and I have not worked together one-on-one.

My, I'm willing to put money on it that you have not heard of this concept, you have not thought about it, you don't know what I'm even talking about, and it is something that has the power to be incredibly impactful in your work life balance. Okay, so let me paint this picture for you. I was coaching recently a client who was.

She wanted to prioritize working on, uh, performance review, if you will. So she needed to complete a personal evaluation. She had set, uh, different professional goals for, no, you can't talk right now. [00:04:00] Nope. I'll tell you when you can. Thank you. So she had set up a, um, two goals that she needed to, that she was, she was working on throughout the year for herself, and this was through her employer and she needed to complete some.

You know, data, if you will, take data and kind of complete a summary. Basically talking about how she attempted to hit those goals, how close she came, what worked, what didn't work, so on and so forth. Okay? This is one of those things that is a requirement for her. Place of employment, and as we were talking about it, this concept of intentional constraint came up right away.

So here, like I said, let me paint you this picture, right. She, we like went right in to the, to the task, went [00:05:00] right into follow finding the. The documents that were needed, finding the right website and the platform and all the things, right, and this is so normal, right? How our brain works a lot of times, especially if we are super busy and if we have a DHD or some type of neurodivergent brain learning, right?

This happens a lot where we go right into a task. Without pausing, assessing, evaluating, how much, how important is this task? How much time do I wanna spend on it? Um, how much time do I think it's gonna take me? Like, what level of effort and energy is required, right? We're not thinking, most people are not thinking about those questions before they decide to begin a task.

You're just not, you're [00:06:00] like, here's my list. These are the things I need to get done. I have an opportunity right now. I great. Like I'm focused. Look at me. I am initiating a task. That's a win for me because I have a DHD and we all know that task initiation when you have a DHD is a challenge. So sometimes we're just so like.

Amped up and excited to be able to actually be in motion, right? To be working on something that we go into it thinking like, this is a win. This is great. I'm actually getting something done right? But this is a sign that your brain is treating everything on your to-do list as equally important. Have you ever stopped to consider what amount of time and ener energy and effort do I want to [00:07:00] put into this, right.

Most likely, no. What I have noticed is that most of us, if we are attempting to prioritize tasks the way that we do it, most of us, is by. Deadline. How soon is the deadline? Okay. This one is due first, so I'm gonna get this one done first. Um, most often it's about co potential consequences of not doing the task.

If I don't do this thing, this bad result will happen, and I don't want that bad result to happen, so I better do it. And then sometimes we might prioritize a task based on like our energy and our mood, which to me, that's a higher level, um, form of prioritization. That's something that I, I am not saying that that's wrong in any way, but it still doesn't address [00:08:00] the fact that not all tasks are created equal.

So.

If you are wondering like, how do I do this? What does this even mean? What are you talking about? Right? Maybe you're on board with the idea that your brain hasn't been considering how important and meaningful these tasks are before you start doing it. Okay? So if you're in that camp where you just start a task and you're in it.

Here's the problem. Here's why this is a problem for you. This is the way that this is costing you. Okay? You think you're being productive and you're getting things done right? But here is the trap. You are spending way too much time and energy on something that does not require or merit that level of time, energy, and [00:09:00] attention.

You are just giving it all away. It's like, it's like if you imagine that time and energy are finite and think about a budget. If you're trying to budget your. Your income and your expenses. So you know, I only have X amount of dollars coming in. When that money's gone, that money is gone. Well. Similarly, you only have so much time and you only have so much energy when that time and energy is gone.

It is gone until you go and make more of it. Can't make more time, you can make more energy, but those are not limitless, but. If you're going into a task without considering those questions that I asked, how much, how important is this? How meaningful is this? How much time do I wanna spend? Blah, blah, blah.

Right? If you're just going in without considering any of that, it's like you're going into a store and just buying whatever you wanna buy without looking at the price, without wondering how much money is available [00:10:00] in your wallet, on your debit card, right in your bank account, how much remaining credit you have on your credit card.

That's what this is like. Then time passes. You come out of doing it and you're like, maybe it's done, maybe it's not. Maybe the task is done, maybe it's not done. But then you come out of it and you are like, oh my gosh, I used up all that time trying to get this thing done, and now I can't do X, Y, and z. Now I have to stay up late and do this thing.

Well, now I can't go to this event. Now I only have a fraction of the amount of time I need to write this report. Do you see how this becomes problematic? Right? It keeps you stuck. On the hamster wheel. On the hamster wheel of that to-do list, that [00:11:00] hamster wheel of like needing to just, yep, getting things done, getting things done.

Productivity, what's on the list, check the box, move on. Right? If we are not operating with this strategy of intentional constraint, you will stay stuck. You will stay behind. You will stay. In that place of imbalance, you will continue to constantly feel like there's never enough time. But this concept of intentional restraint, intentional constraint has the power to shift so much, so much.

I also wanna offer that if you are somebody who goes right into a task without. Considering these things, it's not that you are failing, it's not that you're wrong. It's not that you've made a mistake. It's not that you're bad at time [00:12:00] management, it's just that you're human and you aren't thinking about these things in this way.

This is what we do in coaching, right? So it's not that you have done anything wrong or failed miserably, and that's what, not what this is about. Facebook Live. Our podcast episode is not about shaming and guilting you. We get enough of that everywhere else, especially from ourselves. That's not the point.

There are really good reasons why we just dive into tasks when we do. A lot of times this is happening subconsciously. In fact, I think the majority of the time we are doing this, it's happening. It's all happening subconsciously. There are times yes, where it happens consciously. So for example, I have to get this done.

I have to get it done. Right now I only have a little bit of time. I need this to be done, to be done really, really well. I need this. This matters like I have to get this done. [00:13:00] If I don't do a good job on this, so and so is going to have a negative opinion about me. If I don't do a good job of this, people are going to think X, Y, Z.

Like that is often the co. Whether you real well, I was gonna say whether you realize it or not. Maybe if you realize it, then those are the conscious thoughts that are keeping you stuck in this trap. But they also may be happening, sub happening subconsciously. So you might be thinking these things without even knowing or realizing that that's what's floating through your brain.

Okay. But for those of you who are aware of that voice, that's always talking inside your mind saying things that are usually not helpful, right? For those of you who are well aware, there are other things that are happening subconsciously that are keeping you stuck in this trap, for example. Especially if you have a DHD, right?

Hello? My neurodivergent friends. Hyperfocus. You know, if you have a DHD or you know, somebody with [00:14:00] a DHD. When it comes to something that we've decided to lock in on, we can go all in on this thing hyperfocus. And it feels like it's a good thing. It feels like it's a useful way to spend our time. It feels productive, but.

Most of the time that hyper focus backfires because we, when we are hyper-focusing, we are all in. And the problem with this is we're all in on something that usually does not require us to be all in on it, and then we don't have the time and energy to dedicate towards the things that actually do matter.

Okay. Also for still talking about my A DHD friends, right? You know that when we like to [00:15:00] amp up the importance of something when every task feels really, really important and meaningful, it creates a level, it creates some, some dopamine, it creates adrenaline, where now we've kind of activated ourselves.

Like, Hey, this is really, really important. I've got this matters. I've gotta get this done, this, I've gotta do a really good job on this, and I need to get it done. And it creates this, it, it creates this experience of pressure and stress and adrenaline and dopamine in a way that keeps the stakes feeling really, really high, even if the task itself is a low stakes task, right?

Also time awareness if you have a DHD, and even if you don't, you all probably know if you're in this group or listening to this podcast that one of the executive functioning skills [00:16:00] that we talk about a lot here right, is time management, time awareness. If you are neurodivergent, you likely struggle in that area.

So you might be all in on a task and have very little awareness of how much time you've been spending on it, how much time, right? How much time has passed, how much time remains. You might not be able to gauge ahead of time accurately, how much time you think something's going to take. So the time awareness piece can keep us stuck and now we are giving.

Infinite time, seemingly infinite, limitless time to something that is not worthy of limitless time. It is not worthy of all of that time and energy, but we're just doing it without realizing. Okay, so these are some of the ways that this will show up or some of the reasons why this will show up. [00:17:00] What, like even if you weren't realizing that this is what's occurring.

Okay, so ask yourself, do I, looking at my list of to-dos, like do I ever struggle to identify different levels of importance with tasks? Do I, maybe I recognize like that this task isn't all that important, but then once I start doing it, it takes on a life of its own and it feels really important and I've forgotten that.

Like I'm not, you know, finding the cure for cancer. I'm just writing session notes, right? Or. Are you like, no. I know that there are tasks that are less important. I know that even when I'm in it, I am remembering like this is not a big important task and yet I can't seem to [00:18:00] limit the amount of time that I'm spending on it.

That may be the case for some of you as well. So this can show up in different ways, right? It might feel depending upon like where you are at in this journey of work-life balance or. You know, a lot of different factors, but ask yourself those questions to see where you, where you identify, like what you identify with and where, and how this shows up for you.

Okay? Now, the strategy, the concept, the tool that really, truly does have the power to set you up where you are doing less work. You are working less and you're accomplishing more, you are finishing more. It is, I mentioned the name before, but again, it is this concept of intentional constraint. So let's talk about this.

Let's talk about what it is [00:19:00] and how you can use it in like some of those examples that I already gave you and start seeing shifts. Okay. Again, this is a strategy that I've been talking about quite a lot recently with coaching clients. So intentional constraint is the concept that you are putting limits intentionally.

Okay? Purposeful, thoughtful limits on what you are spending. The what that you are spending could be time. Attention, energy, effort, money, um, thought like thinking how much you're gonna think about something there you can apply this concept. In different areas, but in general, it is the idea of putting [00:20:00] limits on how much you are spending towards something.

In this case, let's say time and effort. Okay, so if we're talking about this concept of intentional constraint, it is the concept that I'm going to intentionally decide that this task. We'll get this amount of energy from me. Maybe you, if you're listening on the podcast, you cannot see me, but I'm like gesturing with my hands, like this amount, little bit.

Or it could be, I'm gonna give it this amount, maybe a little bit bigger, right? I'm gonna give it this amount of time, this amount of effort, this amount of energy. Now again, this is not telling you that you. Have to spread yourself thin or that you have to, you know, be sitting there with a stopwatch and deciding how much time and holding yourself to that time limit.

But it is [00:21:00] about, it's empowering because it puts you back in the driver's seat in the agency of, oh yes, I do have some control over how much time I spend on something. I do have some control over how much effort I put into it. Stress is another one, right? I do have some control over how much stress I put on this thing, how much pressure I put on myself to accomplish this thing, right?

So I'm talking to those of you who believe that you have the agency to do this. You just don't quite know yet how to do it, and you haven't figured out that you can do it successfully and safely, because some of you might be listening and thinking, well, well, that's all good and great, but, uh, you can't just decide that an evaluation report is going to take you 15 minutes if 

Speaker: you, 

Speaker 2: you can't just intentionally constrain yourself to 15 [00:22:00] minutes.

Big bang, boom. Right? No, that's not what this is about. This is about being reasonable. This is about being realistic, and this is about having your finger on the pulse with where you're directing your time and energy. So intentional constraint for those of you who want to start using this strategy, but you're like, how?

How do I do this? I have some questions that you can ask yourself, and then I have some intentional thoughts. That you can use if you're one of my coaching clients or if you've been here a while, you know that we do a lot of mindset work. So looking at those automatic negative thoughts that come up and shifting them.

So I've got some intentional thoughts that will help you. Mantras, affirmations, if you will. I don't really think of them that way, but I'm gonna give you both questions that you can ask yourself before you start a task. And then intentional thoughts you can choose to keep [00:23:00] you within that intentional constraint.

I'm always doing this with my hands, like picking a little box. That's sort of what I picture when I think about this concept of intentional constraint. Okay, so questions that you can ask yourself. Number one, how impactful. Is this task, or another way you could ask it is, how important is this task? Or how meaningful is this task?

Okay. But I think one version of that question one, one of those three versions would be great. How impactful is this task? How meaningful is this task? How important is this task? This helps you to recognize that a session note is probably less impactful and important than an evaluation report. A, an email response to a colleague is probably less impactful than a [00:24:00] presentation that you're giving at a conference, right?

So deciding this ahead of time, asking yourself this ahead of time so that you start to prime your brain to respond accordingly. The next question, I love this question and it is a question that anytime I ask it in a coaching session for the first time, my coaching clients are like.

So if this serves you, take it. And if not, then that's fine too. But this second question that I love, how much time do I want to spend on this task? I. I am not asking you how much time you think you need to finish this task. I'm not asking you how much time you think the task will take. I'm asking you how much time do you want to give it, and similarly, [00:25:00] how much energy do you want to give this?

How much pressure do you want to apply to this task? So that if you're like me, someone who starts doing something that really isn't all that impactful. But then as you get going, your brain makes it super stressful and you've forgotten that it actually wa you've, that it wasn't actually a, a very important or meaningful task, but when you're in it, your brain is like making it feel like life and death, right?

So these questions that I'm offering you are questions to ask beforehand and during, during the task, but to help cue you accordingly, right? So how impactful, important. Meaningful is this task, how much time, energy, stress do I want to give this task? And then for my visual friends, what I would offer as a [00:26:00] strategy, as an idea is something that you can write down or cue, you know, like draw, write down, jot down to serve as a visual cue throughout.

Task so that once you start it, you can remember what level of importance this is, what level of meaning this task has, how much time and energy you wanna devote to it. This is especially important for those of you who have a DHD because as you probably know, working memory, another executive functioning skill, working memory is not our strong suit.

So you could have it in your head. This is a mediocre task, like middle, mid-level, meaning mid energy, mid, mid-level stress, mid-level energy. You could have that locked in before you start, and then once you start going on that task, you might forget all about the answers that you just came up with [00:27:00] to these questions because working memory fails us.

Okay? So you can give yourself. A visual like I've done with some clients. On a scale of one to 10, write down the number. How for to your answer for those questions. How impactful, important, meaningful, how much time and energy and effort do I wanna give? Right? Write that down on a scale of one to 10, and put that number in front of your screen, somewhere on your computer, somewhere that you're gonna see it and keep it visible to remind you.

You could also do this on a like a color scale, maybe like red is super important. Really needs, need to do it and work hard and good quality work. Green is like minimal and then yellow is in the middle, or I also will do grades that often works well as a cue for my coaching clients. Many of [00:28:00] us are sort of those like type A, high achievers, grade obsessed personalities, if you know, you know, so maybe what level of work do we need to create while we're doing this?

Are we talking a plus level? Are we talking b? B minus C, like, let's pick a grade that we wanna shoot for so that we're not trying to get an A plus a hundred percent on every single task. Because if you give a hundred percent energy and a hundred percent effort and a hundred percent stress, right to every task.

You will never feel like you have work-life balance. You will never feel like you are in control of your to-do list of your day, of how you spend your time. You have to make changes to what you are budgeting, what you are spending if you want a different result. Okay. And [00:29:00] then I promise. Last but not least, a few intentional thoughts.

If these help you, great. If not, ignore or always feel free to modify in any way that fits for you. But here are ones that I often use or that I've heard my coaching clients use that I have found to be, or they have found to be particularly helpful. One of my favorites. Done is better than Perfect. Done is better than perfect.

Another one. Progress over perfection. Take messy action, right? I said to a coaching client the other day, no one is handing out trophies for a. Top over the top session note, no one is handing out trophies. No one's handing out bonuses, right? There's no bonus that you're getting if your session notes have every detail in them.

So why are [00:30:00] we requiring ourselves to put every detail in? Let's meet expectations, but we do not need to exceed expectations in every single task, every single day. Right. So done is better than perfect. Progress over perfection. Take messy action. Another one. This does not define me. This one task does not represent my work ethic.

Value impact as an SLP. Another one, less is more. How can that be true here? Less is more. Also remembering time and energy are finite. I often help clients, give clients the visual of like a, a big, um, container, like one of those stor clear storage bins. That's the amount of time and energy we have. So we can shove things in there all we want, but [00:31:00] eventually we get to a place right where we can't shove anything else in without.

The storage bin, cracking the lid coming off, so on and so forth. So keep that in mind as you're working on different tasks. Okay.

And then I had one other one for you and it fell outta my head, so I'm trying to think if I can remember it on the spot. We said, this does not define me. Oh, I know what it was. It was um, more time now means less time later. So sometimes that can be helpful for me if I'm like, really like pushing myself to like overperform in an, in an on a task, on a report or whatever.

If I'm overthinking it, if I'm taking way too much time on it, then it, then the task itself is worth. That's another one. Like the more time and energy I spend here, the less time and energy I have [00:32:00] later. Saying yes to something means saying no to something else. That one may or may not really fit all that well here because yeah, but just throwing that in there as well.

Okay, so that is the concept of intentional constraint and how it has the power to really shift the way that you spend your time and the amount of stress that you feel. Every day as you are working through your list, whether that list is in your head, which I hope is not just in your head. I hope it's somewhere on paper, computer, somewhere, something, right?

If it's all up here, that's contributing. That's contributing to the mental load, that's contributing to the stress for sure. But this concept of intentional constraint truly does have the power to shift so much. I talked today about how you can use it for tasks. Time spent on tasks. I also mentioned there are lots of other ways this concept can be [00:33:00] applied, and I will probably talk about those in another Facebook Live or another podcast episode.

So stay tuned for that. And if this episode or this Facebook Live really resonates with you, I've got another, I have a podcast episode that you're gonna wanna check out. It's um, episode 87. Why work expands to fill your time. So it's a similar topic. So if this is something that you're struggling with or you need more support with, check out episode 87.

I bet it will be helpful as well. All right, that's it. I'll talk with you Allall soon. Bye.