Traditional productivity metrics often do not apply to those with ADHD. We need to advocate for a redefinition of success that aligns with our personal strengths and unique workflows. From leveraging technology to simplifying organization to embracing alternative productivity methods, this episode shares practical strategies you can incorporate into your daily lives.

This week, I speak to Skye Waterson, a former adult education, psychology, sociology, and public health academic who is now the founder of the Unconventional Organisation.

Skye was diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her doctorate. Since then, she has researched and disseminated ADHD studies, focusing on supporting others with strengths-based, neurodiverse-friendly tools and systems.

Skye Waterson's journey from academia to entrepreneurship is a testament to the power of understanding our neurodiversity. Diagnosed with ADHD during her PhD, Skye faced the daunting task of reconciling her academic ambitions with the realities of her ADHD, leading her to develop a coaching business dedicated to helping others navigate similar challenges.

The episode dives deep into the intricacies of ADHD, particularly how it manifests differently in women and how societal expectations can lead to feelings of inadequacy and burnout. Skye emphasizes the importance of creating a supportive environment where women can thrive by utilizing tools that cater to their neurodiverse brains.

The conversation underscores the need for greater awareness and acceptance of ADHD, particularly in professional settings, as well as the potential for neurodivergent individuals to excel when given the right tools and support.

During this episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, we talk about:

• Skye Waterson discusses her journey of discovering ADHD during her PhD, highlighting the challenges she faced.
• Understanding our unique ADHD brains can empower us to embrace different productivity methods.
• The importance of creating effortlessly balanced days where productivity feels natural and fluid.
• Self-belief can be a significant barrier for ADHD individuals when pursuing new projects.
• Using tools like AI can simplify executive functioning, helping to manage ADHD tasks effectively.
• Recognizing past achievements helps build confidence for future endeavours and goal-setting.

Timestamps:

• [02:22] Discovering ADHD in Academia
• [07:35] Understanding ADHD and Productivity
• [13:57] The Importance of Self-Belief
• [28:03] Navigating Career Changes Post-Diagnosis
• [39:41] Additional Resources

Try Kate's new Apple podcast subscription, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, here

Connect with Skye via her website, www.unconventionalorganisation.com or her Instagram.

Have a look at some of Kate's workshops and free resources here.

Kate Moryoussef is a women’s ADHD Lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity. 

Follow the podcast on Instagram here.

Follow Kate on Instagram here.

Find Kate's resources on ADDitude magazine here.

Links referenced in this episode:

• goblin.tools
• unconventionalorganization.com

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EfT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me, and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with ADHD.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Today, I'm absolutely delighted to bring to you a guest all the way from New Zealand.

It's four in the morning for her.

Her name is Skye Waterson.

Now, Sky is a founder of unconventional organization.

Skye's a former academic with over seven years of experience working in adult education.

Skye was diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her doctorate and since then, she has dedicated time researching, disseminating ADHD studies, focusing on supporting others with strength based, neurodiverse friendly tools and systems, which I now believe you've put into your fantastic business, your coaching business, and we will discuss all of that.

So, Skye, welcome to the podcast.

I'm very excited to dive in and get talking.

Thanks.

because we were just talking about it.

This is when I usually start working because I work with so many wonderful people in the UK and the US primarily.

But I live in New Zealand.

Yeah, I mean, the fact that we were just discussing, I was saying there's no way I could do four in the morning.

for you is like really difficult.

So it just shows, doesn't it, how unique we all are with our neurodiverse brains and we.

It actually just highlights the power of acknowledging what works best for us.

Where we do those sprints, where we can be productive, where we know when that productive couple of hours are and when we need to sort of take some time out and rest.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, let's backtrack a little bit.

And what really intrigued me is that you said you found out that you were ADHD while you were in the process of doing your PhD.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, so basically I'd gone through my masters and, you know, my grades had been good.

But I had felt like I was burning out.

You know, I'd actually taken some time off between my master's and my PhD, and it just felt like there was something going on.

Some days I was great.

Some days I was struggling.

There were some areas, you know, with grammar, which I thought maybe I had dyslexia because there were some areas where I was just missing things.

So I thought, okay, well, let's go to the inclusive learning center, and maybe they'll diagnose me with dyslexia and we'll find out what it is.

So I went in there all scared.

I didn't know anything.

Despite teaching development in kids, it wasn't a huge.

We knew about autism in kids, but that was kind of it.

And so I went in, and, yeah, we did a couple of days of different testing, and at the end, they said, okay, we don't know about the dyslexia, but we think you should get your formal diagnosis with ADHD.

And I went, I'm sorry, what?

And this was right at the beginning of my PhD.

It was a really huge moment because I had sort of chosen my professor, I'd chosen my topic, and then everything changed.

Wow.

I mean, to have got to that point in academia, and like you said, there was sort of certain things that maybe you'd kind of, like, picked up some red flags, but you just kind of persisted.

I wondered when you had then had that kind of, like, realization about the ADHD, did you look back and realize how much effort and how exhausting it must have been being in this academic world?

Probably having to work twice, three times as hard as other people.

Yeah.

Well, I sort of realized that, you know, I knew that academia, you know, especially when I first started, I was looking into, am I a clinical psychologist?

Am I a lawyer?

I was doing all of those, you know, very competitive tracks.

And so everyone was competing.

Everyone was competing to get into these small things and that kind of stuff.

And then I think what happened was I went the more, you know, general psychology academic route, and I still was just working at that level and assuming that kind of everyone else was.

And the truth was that that wasn't true.

Like, other people were doing other things.

But, you know, for me, I was bringing all of this, and one of the things that I had once I got diagnosed was I could finally understand, okay, this strategy that I'd had, this was why I was doing it.

This strategy I'd had, I was just doing that because it worked one time.

It had nothing to do with ADHD.

So I could actually put down some of the unnecessary stuff that I'd accumulated.

I was.

It was very much like, you know, throw some salt over your shoulder.

It works.

One time.

Oh, that must be it.

You know, not really actually having any reasons because I didn't know.

I just knew that.

I just knew that I was, like, in what I would now consider to be a bit of an ADHD burnout cycle.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm more interested to know what attracted you to the academic world and to wanting to do the PhD.

It was largely because I could not imagine myself in a job.

And I also think maybe I had the dubious benefit of graduating during the recession the first time.

So I graduated at a time when it was very, very hard to get a job.

So there was this huge barrier to entry, of actually, like, everyone was applying for jobs and it was very difficult to go through that job process.

But even when I did and I got, you know, through and I was doing interviews and things like that, I never felt comfortable with the idea of, like, picking one thing and doing that.

Like, if you look at my academic, especially pre ADHD career, I was like, going psychology, sociology, public health, population health, you know, and so there was this feeling of like, maybe I just haven't found the topic that's gonna light me up for the rest of my life.

Ironically, that was true.

Now, I found this.

But the ADHD side, it did leave me kind of wanting to just keep exploring, especially in my twenties.

Yeah, I mean, what I can hear is that there was all these little clues and that kind of questioning of, like, why can't I just find that thing that just interests me and I can just stay interested and do what?

Like, you know, normal.

I'm doing inverted commas, neurotypical people do, and they find the one thing and then they just focus on that and then.

But I think actually, academia is a very ADHD, a line of work to go into because we love research.

We can uncover new things, our curiosity, our hyper focus.

You know, on the flip side, it can be very difficult.

There's a huge amount of burnout.

I see this in hearing from a lot of people who have done PhDs and masters and worked in sort of research or doctorates, and there is that sort of burnout.

But when we understand our ADHD and we understand the way our brains work, then we can work in a way that suits us.

And this.

What sort of brings me to my next question is that it seems that you really have a passion for helping people understand their productivity and get the best out of their ADHD productivity because we want to dispel these myths and these stigmas of, oh, we're not productive.

We can't get things done.

We're hugely disorganized.

And, yes, there obviously is a huge amount of that because we have not understood our brains and we've been fed a huge amount of negative beliefs about ourselves and which, you know, if we've never had an understanding, we believe those.

And then it's just a kind of like a snowball effect.

But when we're able to get that awareness of the ADHD and go, oh, okay, so I'm productive, but I'm just not productive in a way that other people are productive.

And we let go of that shame, and we embrace that.

I love.

I really love to be able to help people with that and see that and recognize that.

Tell me a little bit about, is that, like, a bit of a cornerstone of your business and is that passion of yours?

Yeah, 100%.

You know, often what I want people to know is that it doesn't have to be.

Everything is being pushed up the hill all the time.

That feeling like you're just pushing, you wake up and even before you get out of bed, like, the.

Getting out of bed feels hard.

Everything feels hard.

One of the things that I've learned and I've studied and worked with people on is that we can create these kinds of effortlessly balanced days where things just flow.

They feel like, oh, and I'm getting up, and I'm using this strategy and this dopamine here, and this is organized in the way that works for my brain, and now I'm getting some stuff done.

And that didn't feel bad, actually, that felt okay.

And so you're not fighting your internal adhd ness the whole day, getting to the end of it, being super exhausted, bedtime procrastination, not getting enough sleep, starting again the next day, we can tip the scales in the opposite direction.

I love that this effortlessly balanced way, because I believe that when we've been diagnosed later on in life, we, our nervous systems have just got used to working in this way where everything feels stressful and anxiety inducing and we don't know what life feels like when things feel like, you say, effortlessly balanced and easy and in flow, because we've always been pushing ourselves up, up that hill.

And then we can just make a choice.

We can just go, actually, it's okay for me to do things differently and do well doing that.

Like, when we are doing things well and we are being successful and things are flowing.

There's a voice in the back of our head going, well, this is you.

Like this.

Something's gonna change.

Like, something's gonna blow up here because.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And that, again, in, like, our nervous system is like, well, life feels good.

And I feel like I'm kind of, like, leaning into what feels good to me.

But why should it be this easy when my whole life it hasn't been easy?

And that takes a lot of getting used to.

I mean, for me, I'm still like that.

Like, I'm like, how do I do?

This is my job.

Like, is this a real job?

Because when I tell people what my.

Job is, yeah, I may.

I've made up my title and what I do because it doesn't really exist.

So tell me a little bit about when people are coming to you and they're saying, I've got a project and I have something big that I want to complete, but I just don't know how to get from a to z because all those little things in between are just so terrifying and overwhelming.

But I just don't think I've got it in me.

I don't think I've got that capability.

Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that we talk about is that project design or goal setting, these kinds of things, they are as much of an ADHD struggle as anything else.

People often say, like, you need to work towards the goal.

That's the ADHD struggle.

But actually, when you look at time blindness, when you look at working memory, even setting the goal is a struggle in itself.

So the first thing that we would do is actually take you back five years ago and say, where were you and what were you doing?

Where are you now?

Trying to get a sense for you of how time works.

Kind of like even place you in time and from there kind of go, okay, you didn't know anything about ADHD five years ago.

Like, this is your life.

This is where you were, and look where you are now.

That's really cool.

Kind of get a little bit of that positive energy going, and then from there go, okay, now, what is your project?

What is your goal?

And often that helps people to really see how time could work both positively and negatively.

Yeah, I think that's really powerful for people, especially with ADHD, to be able to see how far they've come because we're so focused on all the things that we perceive that we can't do properly or can't do well or where we have that sort of deficit in.

And actually to be able to say, well, that version of you five years ago had no awareness and look how much awareness that you have now, and look what you are considering and look what you are thinking of taking on.

And we just think, well, if that's where we are right now, let's have a little think about where we're going to be in a few years time, that growth.

And I think focusing on that, but I mean, I go back all the time to even myself now and I have a huge amount of self belief than I used to.

Like, there's no way the version of me five years ago would have envisioned myself where I am right now, doing what I'm doing.

Oh, same.

And I, I feel sad for that version of me because I genuinely didn't think I had it in me to be able to first of all, like, stay with something for this long.

Like, the podcast has been going for two and a half years to stick at something, to not get bored.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

But also the project, you know, the things behind it, I didn't know if I had.

And thankfully I've been able to lean into support and delegate and everything.

But is this where you come in when people are coming to you and they are desperate to make change and they're desperate to fulfil their potential?

Would you say that sometimes that barrier that block is their self belief, that they can take a project from the beginning to the end?

I think it's really tough.

I mean, it's very hard to bring self belief to somebody if they don't have it.

The ways that I've really been able to do it is one talking about what they've already done to give them a sense that they have achieved in the past and they can do it again.

The other one is trying to share the fact that I have ADHD, the community has ADHD, what other people have done.

We have a channel dedicated to what we call small win celebrations.

Every time somebody has a win, they share it there to build up everyone's confidence in having these wins.

But also, sometimes you do have to just say like, okay, this is why we're doing things.

It's kind of like, you know, coaching can kind of feel like you're doing a magic trick, but you're going to show them exactly how it's being done.

You know, like, okay, I know that you've done this before and it didn't work and that was really frustrating, but we're going to actually break down your tasks using an AI.

I use goblin tools.

We're going to use that to kind of break down your tasks.

So we have something that's doing the working memory for us and then we're going to check that and then from there we're going to pick one and we're going to set it up in a specific kind of way and so on and so on.

And so that kind of thing I find explaining the executive functioning and the reasoning behind everything that's happening while it's happening gives people a lot more confidence because I don't want them to be confident in me, I want them to be confident in themselves.

Yeah.

And you mentioned using goblet.

Now, I've not used it, but I know here in the UK it's available as part of access to work.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I'm almost sure it is.

It's an option that's cool because it.

Is free to get, but it might be a paid version.

Maybe it's a paid version or maybe it's something else, I'm not sure.

But I just wondered what your thoughts were for using AI and the tools and using that as kind of like part of our executive functioning.

And I know that Doctor Tamborde, Laura Raisier, who wrote the brilliant book your brain's not broken, one of her concepts is borrowing someone else's executive functioning.

And when I heard that concept, I was like, oh my God, that's amazing.

So someone can borrow my creativity and my kind of, like, I don't know, hyper focus and curiosity and then I can borrow someone else's executive functioning and, you know, processing or whatever, but using AI, I'm hearing more and more that a lot of people who are a bit more savvy with tech are using it and having great success.

I just wondered what your thoughts were.

Yeah, well, yeah, I'm a big fan of using any of the tools we use.

You know, we'll use Miro, we'll use, which is a digital whiteboarding system, we'll use AI.

Goblin tools is particularly helpful, specifically, you know, designed for ADHD in that way, but it's really about knowing how to use it and when to use it.

You know, a lot of times people will come to me sort of overburdened with apps.

They'll have kind of like apps coming out of every little, like, nook and cranny.

They'll be like, these are the five journals.

This is the one for this day.

This is the one for that day.

And this is my app that I half use and I didn't use anymore.

And so one of the things we first have to do is we have to kind of clear away a lot of the stuff because, you know, I have this as well, and I have to be very strict with myself around.

Like, you don't just get to start a new app because somebody mentioned it, so easy to do.

And, you know, there is that burst of dopamine from starting a new thing, and it's clear, so there's no way to mess it up, you know, yet.

But we teach systems for how to build it because otherwise it can just become another thing that's kind of like, in the way.

Totally.

And I'm so glad that you said that because, you know, as a podcast, I get a lot of people who are creating ADHD tools, systems, AI, you know, apps and all of that, and they always want to kind of come on the podcast or they want me to talk about it.

And I actually, for me, the way my brain works.

And again, because we're all very different and unique, that I really just need simplicity.

And I have been that person that has five different journals and think, right, I'm gonna have a journal for like, just, you know, brainstorming.

They're gonna have a journal for this journal for that.

And then I forget which journal is which, and then I lose a journal.

And so for me, the consistency that's worked for me is using my notes, sending myself text messages, and my alarm on my phone, like reminders constantly.

So everything's kinda of on my phone, because there's only so many apps we can all have on our phone, and it's contributing to the burnout and the overwhelm, and simplifying our systems and simplifying the way we work, for sure, for many people, is the way we can be more productive, I think.

Yeah, I've seen people do amazing things by simplifying their systems, and I've seen people close million dollar deals.

Some of my clients with their Google Doc, it's really amazing.

I see us as more of tech minimalists because, you know, it can be very high tech, but it's about integration.

But a lot of that is about supporting working memory, especially when you're in that capture phase of organization.

And this is actually something we talk about once we get into the depths of those big projects, we have to have an organizational system.

And so there's sort of three phases.

There's sort of the capture phase, the prioritization phase, and the scheduling phase.

And you sort of have to go through these three phases of organization.

And sometimes, often those three phases need three different things, but they have to be super integrated and at the capture phase, you know yourself and you'll have this experience if you have ADHD and you're like, oh, I've got to remember that.

Great.

You have one click to write that down before it's gone.

If you have to open something, open something else, you're not going to remember that and then you're never going to write it down again because your brain knows you're never going to remember it, so you're just going to put it somewhere else.

You put it in your notes app anyway.

So that's often how we end up with so many journals.

It's like the one we're supposed to use and then the one we actually use because our working memory doesn't let us get to the one we're supposed to use.

Correct.

Yeah.

I mean, one of my fun games is going through my notes app and going through things that I've written on a dog walk or like when I've just got out the shower and then written it going, I will definitely look at that tomorrow.

Then obviously I don't.

And so I find, like, ideas for workshops, ideas for podcast episodes, for, you know, courses, and I'm like, oh, how did I, how did I know that?

Like, that, what a great idea.

And obviously it's just totally gone, but at least I know that it's there and it's not in five different journals.

And I love what you said then about, like, how you've seen people become, you know, hugely successful because we mustn't forget that when we've got ADHD, there's a very high chance there's dyslexia going on.

This dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia.

There's something else going on alongside the ADHD and we feel very limited when we have all these ideas in our head.

But then putting it out on it in a presentation, on paper, in a book, in academia, all of that, it can make us feel less than and it can make us feel stupid that, why can't I work out that presentation deck?

Like, why can't I do that thing wherever moving images?

Like, I have that with social media that I see a lot of people doing these cool memes and reels and all of that, and I'm still kind of stuck about five years ago.

Like, literally, does it have the right sound?

Does the writing look, you know, correct?

And that's kind of the way I am.

But it is what it is and we just have to work with what we've got, but hopefully kind of growing a little bit at the same time.

And I think my question really is when people come to you and they're saying, I have this idea, I have this potential, I want to do this big project, but my brain just likes simple.

My brain just needs to be able to know that I'm not going to get distracted and I'm not going to get lost in a hyper focused tunnel somewhere else.

How do we bring ourselves back so we can complete that task?

Yeah, I think that's a really great thing.

And this is something I actually learned before I got diagnosed because I had to write theses.

And, you know, I'm not a natural writer.

People are really surprised because my articles are the thing that I'm often most known for.

A lot of it has to do with, again, it's that flow.

You want that effortless flow.

So it's, you know, often it's about, okay, you need to get started on something.

There's ways we can help you with that.

There's like, you know, start by rewarding yourself just for sitting down.

Start by, you know, doing something and then turn down the dial on that distraction.

Don't turn it from like, I'm on social media to I'm doing nothing.

Turn it down to, like, podcast music, and then write down exactly what you're going to get done during that time.

So we have a whole process on that.

If you're interested, you can read my article on the distraction dial where we talk about it a little bit.

But then once you're actually starting, if that feels difficult, then often it's like you said, it's about going, okay, maybe I'm not the kind of person who's going to start by writing.

Maybe I need to draw diagrams.

Maybe I need to talk.

There's amazing voice to texts all over the place now that you can use.

The best one is just Google Siri, that kind of thing.

They do voice to text now, you know, so that can be helpful.

Talk and walk, you know, so there's different ways that you can get the information down, especially in that initial capture stage.

And then once you have it, you can do it.

And I am.

I've written a thesis and I have done like the most terrible drafts, you know, just going to a coffee shop and writing by hand, even though I then had to hand type it all to the computer because that was just, was the best way to get it down.

And so, you know, we are all different.

And I think you're totally right.

I think one of the things we'll probably find in the future is that this is huge.

Unknown.

Other diagnoses, dyslexia, dysgraphia, they don't get diagnosed, but they actually do have a big impact on people's lives when they're neurodiverse, because we do tend to have this cloud of things around us.

Totally.

Yeah.

I mean, I know for sure that I have other things going on.

Maybe.

Definitely dyscalculia.

Definitely dyspraxia.

Same.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I just.

I would say dyslexia more.

I'm noticing it as I get older, which is really weird because I never really suspected it, but I'm really noticing certain things.

Maybe it's just because I'm more educated and aware and I can see the nuances of how it shows up.

And it's not just, you know, difficulty in reading or writing or spelling or anything like that.

So, yeah, I think it's a matter of being able to know that when we have been conditioned by the education system, and the education system says, you have to write an essay like this, and it has to.

You have to have sat down and written it using this and using that and doing this and not doing that.

So we kind of grow up as adults going, well, if I do it like that, that's wrong, and I need to get permission to do it like this, and if I don't do it like that, then I'm going to be cheating.

And it's a mentality that so many of us are stuck with.

And I actually was on a, like a Facebook post, someone was asking about writing with ADHD, writing a book with ADHD, and this person was almost asking for approval of the, of the, the group, saying, I actually do really well when I do the voice to text and I just talk.

And she said, but am I cheating?

Like, is that.

I'm not writing a book, am I?

Cause it doesn't feel as horribly hard as it did before.

Yeah, I sometimes, if you wanna talk about feeling a bit like this job is too easy or too good, people will come to me and they'll be like, there is no way.

I have never done this before.

It's never worked before.

And I'll just be like, okay, well, have you tried it like this?

You clearly like doing it like this.

And then within 50 minutes, they're like, well, I'm doing it.

This is amazing.

But it's just because they've like, there is this mental block around it.

And, you know, this is kind of how we have.

We have these things about a lot of things in our lives, and it is that permission.

And I have to remind myself sometimes, you know, to give myself permission to do things the less efficient way, because I think that's the problem as well.

A lot of the discussion is like, well, you type directly into a computer, you know, onto a document, because that's the most efficient way to write.

But that might not be the most efficient way to think.

So often I ask people, how do you think, if you're trying to think about something, where do you think that's where you should write?

That's where you should work on the project.

Yeah.

And to move on to something I wanted to sort of close with is the pivoting of when we get the ADHD diagnosis and we've been working in an industry or we've been working in a specific career that, like you say, has been felt like a slog.

It's felt hard.

It hasn't had that flow, and we've had burnout and all these different things, but we've kind of stuck at it because we should inverted commas.

Then we get the diagnosis, we get the awareness, we understand, and it's almost like we still need that permission to change careers, pivot, do things differently.

And, you know, I presume we're working with grown adults who've got responsibilities, maybe kids, and they still kind of think, well, am I allowed, like, am I allowed to move careers?

Are you noticing that a lot it with sort of pivoting or career change when people get their diagnoses?

I think a lot.

I think, you know, especially with the diagnosis, I think one of the things with ADHD, and I don't know if this, there's some qualitative evidence to indicate that this is true.

We are quite empathetic and mission driven.

If you say, and there is some more evidence to indicate that we're, they're motivated by intrinsics specifically.

So I think when we get diagnosed, it really lights a fire.

And for a lot of us, it sort of helps us to understand what is our passion, how do we actually want to work?

And sometimes that realization can move you away from the space that you were in, where you were struggling.

And sometimes we just make adjustments to what we're doing, but sometimes we have to shift altogether.

And that can be really, really difficult for the reason of, obviously, the permission.

Sometimes it's more of a sideways move, at least initially, especially if you're going to go out on your own.

That can be tough because you're going from a space where you're like, you know, you have a job, and if you say, what do you do?

You have an answer for them to somewhere where that's less the case.

And also just because the executive functioning of actually making those changes anyway.

Yeah, absolutely.

And in the fact that you were diagnosed or you had that realization, like, halfway through your PhD, and you said to me, you know, earlier, it was the hardest decision you've done to leave academia and to leave the confines of the PhD.

I mean, how much kind of stress did that bring you to have to make that decision and to say, right, I've decided to walk away and set up my own business.

It was hard.

It was really hard.

It was, honestly, in the end, I think the reason I was able to do it was because it was my, the advice of my supervisor and even, you know, like, colleagues, because, you know, they said, look, the PhD, you can come back and do the PhD again.

But it was, it was tough.

I, you know, I think I'd had my, my first son about a year before, and, yeah, you got to know when you're not able to do all of the things.

And, you know, the PhD was coming down to a point where it was going to be a lot of the writing, and it was going to take a lot of the same brain space as the academics.

And I also, honestly, I wanted to come back later and do a PhD in this topic, in this thing that I had been studying, you know, my own way, doing the articles and studying it and still study it today independently.

So, yeah, it was a really hard discussion thing to do.

I haven't really talked about that much on a podcast.

I think this might be the first time.

So I'm getting a little bit emotional just having this conversation.

But it was the right thing to do, and I'm very, very happy about it.

But it was definitely, I think, an impostor syndrome moment, because it's like, you know, oh, well, you finish it and then you do everything.

But, you know, part of it is acknowledging, okay, I can't.

And this is the same thing I tell to my clients.

And, you know, ironically, it's always hard for you to do it as well.

Not everything is right now.

Everything is at, you know, you can do most of the things you want to do, hopefully at some point in your life, but you can't do everything that you want to do right now.

So it's about what is now and then what is not now.

And I ended up deciding that the PhD was not now.

And I'm very, very happy with that decision.

It's allowed me to have the focus, to really focus on this and just give it my all and grow it.

And it's been amazing.

But, yeah, it was tough.

Yeah.

I mean, I can really empathize and I can see how difficult that must have been.

I think it's wise words to know that, you know, we do have so much passion and we are sort of purpose driven, like you say, mission driven.

And we do want to do everything but at the risk of our health.

And, you know, neurodivergent burnout is very common because we do want to save the world a lot, and we do want to kind of make our mark and leave a legacy and all those things.

And that's why so many people, if you look through history, there's a very high chance that many of these people who did leave a mark in the world were probably neurodivergent in some capacity.

But we also have to recognize that do we want to carry on certain generational patterns that perhaps have happened in our family and recognize our mental health as, like, being probably there at the very, very top, especially when we are parents.

When we are, you know, you've got very young children and, you know, as my kids get older, I want to model to them to show them that, yeah, it's good to do everything but to be a workaholic and to focus only on work and achieving and productivity and all of that.

It's not the be all and end all in life, and it's good to have rest and time to recharge and have space and time out and holiday and all these different things that are so powerful for us.

And I know that we actually, from the neurodivergent brain perspective, we do really, really well with rest and space and downtime and decompression because that is when things integrate and we think about things and all the cogs kind of go and things click into place.

And even if we just go for a walk for an hour, we'll come back and we'll have kind of lots of solutions and lots of ideas.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And, you know, I know that, you know, ten years from now, me is going to be so happy about that decision because, you know, it's allowed me to really focus in on this and do this well.

And I'm not by any means saying I'm just doing one thing.

I have kids, there's multiple projects going on in the business.

You know, I'm not saying you should just do one thing at a time.

I think it gives you time to then you know, do this and do this really well, run unconventional organization really well, and then grow the research side, the research arm of our organization, to then hopefully, what I would like to do is start publishing papers as part of that and bring that back into the academic space in its entirety.

Like, that is the goal, what we've been talking about.

But it's those first shaky steps when you take them out of the world of what you're supposed to be doing.

And people are like, oh, how's it going?

And you have to say, oh, I chose to do something interesting.

That's something that was very difficult to do.

I think the fact that you're going to focus on research will be amazing because that's what we need.

We keep going back to, we don't have enough evidence.

We don't have enough research.

We don't know enough about, especially women with ADHD and adulthood.

That is what we need to be able to remove the stigmas and say to the doctors and say to our employers and all the people that are still naysaying ADHD in adulthood and going, we have the evidence here, so the system and the world and everything has to change now because we have a better understanding.

And this is not just hypothesizing.

We are getting this from a very sort of evidence based level, and it's really powerful for a lot of people to say, right, okay, we get it now, and we're gonna make a change.

Yeah.

No, 100%.

I think it's.

It helps, you know, when you have the research behind everything.

And one of we're so passionate about doing that on the podcast is disseminating it in a way that makes sense to people so that they can feel a little bit more confident when they get told by somebody like, hey, there's this and there's that.

Not that you should by any means, obviously, you should listen to all your doctors and people like that, but you can have a conversation.

You could say, oh, you mentioned this.

That's.

I do.

I know about that.

I have some information about that.

I think it can be really, really helpful.

Yeah.

So tell people, what's the name of the podcast?

I'm definitely going to be listening to this now.

Thank you.

It's called the ADHD Skills lab.

Every two weeks, Sarah, my producer, and I, we go through and discuss the latest research that's come out.

So we recently did an episode deep diving back into dopamine, talking about all of the different dopamines.

And I sort of say to people, I want it to sound.

It sounds maybe a bit dull, but it's actually, you know, if you think back to if you did university, you're hanging out with, with your colleagues, you know, your friends, and just chatting about something that was really interesting to you, like, oh, did you know that that was that?

And it's really cool that they did that, but they didn't do this thing like I was expecting.

And, you know, we try and keep it like that.

We cover a couple of papers in a certain topic, and then on other weeks we have interviews with amazing people.

We've had on the podcast, Jeremy, the president of Chad, came on.

She talked about her experiences with ADHD, her strategies.

So we kind of keep it strategy.

And research focused, brilliant, and tell everyone where they can find you.

If this type of coaching is really speaking to them, like where, how can they work with you?

Yeah, so you can find me@unconventionalorganization.com.

and yeah, unconventional organization is where you can find the podcast.

It's where you can find a ton of free articles that I've written that go through some of that research and some of those strategies, and you can also join our community if you want to.

Fantastic.

Well, skye, it's been an absolute pleasure.

I'm going to let you go now.

got to get to work.

Yeah, you can go and have, maybe go and have, have a coffee or whatever you do.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I just want to thank you so much for being here and sharing all your insights and expertise, because I think for people to understand their productivity and to remove the shame around what works for them and how they work.

And hopefully, like you say, just like we can be more effortlessly in flow, we can be more balanced.

We can find that sweet spot and succeed.

Like, we just want to see people with ADHD flourish, thrive, succeeded, grow, expand, and have an awareness of our challenges, but not be completely debilitated by them, it's all about seeing them, recognizing them, and then working with them and finding solutions.

And that is how I love to work.

So I'm really, really happy to have brought you onto the podcast today.

Yeah, well, thanks for having me.

I've always been listening and following you, so I was really excited to come on.

So thank you so much.

If you've enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to check out my brand new subscription podcast called the Toolkit.

Now this is where I'm going to be opening up my entire library, my vault of information from over the years, my workshops, webinars and courses, my conversations with experts about hormones, nutrition, lifestyle and bringing brand new, up to date content from global experts.

This is going to be an amazing resource for you, to support you and guide you even more on more niche topics and conversations so you can really thrive and learn to live your best life with ADHD.

I'm so excited about this.

It's the toolkit on Apple Podcast.

You get a free trial.

Really good to see you there.