From Squirrel to Success: Energy Management Tips for the ADHD Entrepreneur

Are you sick of finding your meat suit's running on empty before midday? I'm going to talk you through how ADHD entrepreneurs can find more energy!

Hey, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and this is my podcast "The Weeniecast!"

In episode 79, I'm diving into something that might sound a bit routine, but trust me, it's the lifeblood of our productivity as an ADHD entrepreneur: energy management.

Now, hold on—before you let out an exasperated sigh—this episode isn't about the mundane.

We're not chasing after shiny productivity hacks.

Instead, we're slowing down to speed up.

You heard me.

It sounds counterintuitive, I know, but that's the magic I'm unpacking today.

Personal anecdotes and practical experiments have shown me that some of the simplest changes in our daily habits can have the most profound impacts when it comes to firing up that creative brain of ours and leading a business that's as healthy as we are.

I've always pushed back against the term ‘self-care,’ and in this conversation, I'm inviting you to do the same.

Instead, I'm presenting it as an essential part of our energy toolkit.

From my own experiences, I tell you how taking a moment to walk my dog, Luna, without multitasking, can clear my mind and spark those bright ideas that lead to immense productivity later on.

I dig into why that is and how we can make it a habit.

And I'm not just talking about enjoying the breezy outdoors—I'm getting into the science of it all: why our ADHD brains function the way they do, and how we can leverage that knowledge for our benefit.

From eating a breakfast that balances protein and carbs to sharing the surprising benefits of a good workout or meditative moment, I'm outlining the building blocks for sustainable energy levels that translate to business success.

But what you'll really take away post-listen is not just a bunch of knowledge nuggets—you'll be empowered to make these energy tools work for your entrepreneurial life.

I promise, you'll see how the mundane can be extraordinary.

We talk about how to turn your dog walk into a powerhouse for business planning and how to let a workout beat the stress out of your system so your creativity can kick back in.

And it's not just about the to-dos and lists; I'm giving you permission to pace yourself for premium output.

It might even lead you to fall back in love with the work that you do, and that's a beautiful thing.

We're flipping the script here, moving from frenzied to focused, so that when you do sit down to work, you're coming at it with all cylinders firing—your mind is sharp, calm, and oh-so-ready!

Timestamped Summary:

00:00 Prioritize daily habits for increased energy.

03:46 Prioritizing, clearing mind, and alleviating stress outdoors.

08:04 Fear blocks creativity, prioritize wellness for productivity.

11:50 Exercise helps focus, no gym required.

14:22 Guided meditation trains the nervous system safely.

19:02 Slow down, prioritize wellness, increase creativity, productivity.

Your next steps after listening

Realizing it's time to work with me? Book your free intial strategy call with me - weeniecast.com/strategycall

Get more support in your ADHD entrepreneur life by joining my hyperfocus community! - https://weeniecast.com/hyperfocus

Wanna get this content earlier, and totally unbleeped? Subscribe to the Apple Podcasts premium version of this show - https://weeniecast.com/winners

Want to just buy me a coffee in return for some helpful insight? Thank you! Here's where you can do that - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiethecoach

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Hyperfocused Community

Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. In this episode, I'm telling you the

smorgasbord of energy tips to help you be

more productive and more healthy in your business.

Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and

welcome to the Weenie cast, Squirrel. This

may very well be the least sexy episode that

we've ever done of the Weenie cast. And now that we've lost all the listeners

that are only here for the sex appeal, let's talk about the secret to

you having more energy, to being healthier and getting

more done. And as you're listening, I guarantee you

one thing. You're going to have moments where you're going to be like, okay,

mom, so if you want to call me Mama McManus for

this episode, have at it.

Before we get into this, I want to just acknowledge the elephant in

the room of the term self

care and how it typically gives people with adhd

more anxiety than it does relieve it. When

we hear of self care things that we need to do, it doesn't sound like,

oh, wow, that would be so nice. Yes, I should absolutely do that. Wow, that

would be so enjoyable. When we hear a list of self care things that we

should be doing, we think, oh, there's more I should be doing.

Damn it. Like, is there enough time? How would I do that? Can I

multitask it? Will people notice if I have a face mask on while I'm on

a Zoom call with them? Maybe I'll just have my video off. Maybe I can

take client calls while walking my dog. And our brains go into

hyperdrive trying to figure out all the ways that we can

multitask all the things that we need to do, which we know never

works. We might do it once, and then we forget about it because it

doesn't become a habit, because it's not easy to do. So

when we're talking about these things, forget the label self

care. These are critical things that you need to prioritize in

your day to day that will help you have more energy.

And when you make time for these things, and they will take time,

you will actually be able to get other things done faster.

In a world where we're trying to go faster and faster and faster and get

more things done in less time, we're constantly breaking, we're taking

shortcuts that actually don't get us to where we want to go. I mean,

if you were to open up any social media platform right now, I guarantee

if you scrolled for two minutes, you would see an ad

where someone's promising to show you how to use AI

to create content faster, to lose weight faster, to

organize your kitchen faster. I don't know, like they're using AI for crazy things right

now, but the truth of the matter is to go

faster, you actually have to go slower. And that is

so not sexy to say, but it's true.

And before we get into it, I want to show you how you, as an

ADHD person, as an ADHD business owner, are actually set up

to get more done by slowing down than a

neurotypical. And I know this from experience because this is true

for me. I'm going to use the example of one thing that I do every

single day, and that's walk my dog. Now, on the days where I'm walking my

dog and I'm trying to like do phone calls and touch base with people on

my team and I'm checking all the comments on my LinkedIn post

and I'm looking at my email like while she's sniffing around, not while we're

crossing the street, but we're safe when we cross the street. On those days where

I try to get all this stuff done during my walk,

I actually get less done overall because on that walk I'm not

actually relaxing. I'm not actually letting my mind clear. I'm not actually

connecting with the love of my life, Luna, my sheepadoodle.

And when I get back to my office, to my desk, my brain is

frantic already. It doesn't know how to prioritize, right? It has all

these things going on in the back of my mind because it was just

running the whole time I was on this walk. And

instead of coming back with purpose and with

a creative idea and with intent to get something done,

I come back just a complete mess of anxiety.

On the days where I purposely don't have my headphones in, I

have my phone in a pocket that zipped up and I'm

not reaching for it every second when it buzzes. On those days where I'm

enjoying the walk and I'm looking at the trees and I'm talking to

my dog because we have conversations, as most dog owners

will know, and as I'm just enjoying being outside and

I'm enjoying moving my body, on those days as I'm

out, I have ideas for what I want to do. I'm

able to clear my mind of all the clutter and really understand

what is the thing that I'm most excited about getting done that day.

And usually when I hone in on what that one thing is

I get so excited for an idea that I have about how to do it

that'll make it more fun and more interesting for myself on

these walks, if there's something in the back of my mind that's stressing me

out, walking actually helps me alleviate the stress.

This also happens when I work out, like, when I'm on my peloton or I'm

lifting weights. There's a moment, and I'm sure this is familiar to

you, there's a moment when you're in your workout. Like, it's really hard when

you're stressed out about something because you're constantly thinking about it,

and it's so hard to describe the sensation,

but it's almost like those little notches that they put in maple trees

to drain the. The stuff that they make maple syrup with.

It's almost like that gets tapped into your ankle and out of

your ankle, drains all of the anxiety and stress that you've been

experiencing. And you never know when it's gonna hit in your workout. Like, sometimes it's

in the five minute mark, but sometimes it's like 29 minutes into

your 30 minutes workout. But

the sensation is absolutely incredible. Like, your body

lets go of the cortisol and the adrenaline,

which, by the way, if you're constantly in a stressed

out state and you have adrenaline in your system, adrenaline can only

be moved out of your body through movement. You can't drink enough

water to wash adrenaline out of your system. You have to move

it out. You have to go and get exercise. You have to get your heart

rate up. It's the only way adrenaline moves out of your system. You know, I

don't care if you need a dance break in between calls where you're feeling a

lot of anxiety. If you have adrenaline in your system, move it out of your

system. So after a walk where I'm really focusing on just being on the

walk and letting myself enjoy it and letting myself experience it, and I come back

to my desk, I get the first thing done, and that leads to me getting

the second thing done, and that leads to me getting the third thing done.

When we slow down to speed up, usually the thing that we do to slow

down, the thing that sets us up for success, going for a walk, exercising,

meditating, sitting down, and actually eating breakfast

and focusing on breakfast and maybe having a nice time

talking to loved ones as you have breakfast without trying

to multitask in that moment. What it does is it sets you up

to mono task for the rest of the day. It tells you

the world is safe. This is actually a very secure

environment. You don't have to rush. We're not in fight or flight.

You can be creative. You can ease into your work. And

we all know this when we're in our most

creative and grounded state as ADHD

people, we figure out the laziest way to get

things done. We figure out the hack that works best for us.

We learn how to multipurpose all the things in a way

that's really elegant. But when we start our days trying

to multitask, the most basic things, you know, taking calls

on your, on your walk with your dog, answering emails, responding

to texts, doing all those things, what we actually tell our nervous system

is that this is fight or flight. We're fighting a battle on every

front. Everything is urgent. Panic, panic,

anxiety, anxiety. This is scary. When we get back to our desks,

we don't have that focus. We don't have access to our creativity because we're

actually in fear mode. Of all the things that we need to get done, and

because all the things that we need to get done are now associated

with fear, we don't get dopamine from them. Like, we can get

two or three of those things done and we won't get any dopamine from it

and we will not be able to go on and do more work for the

day. Now, I explain all this to you because I want you to understand the

things I'm going to tell you to do to be able to boost your energy

and be healthier and be happier in your business. Your

brain is going to go, I don't have time for that. Are you

crazy? Like, there's no way. Have you seen my to do

list? And I don't have to see your to do list,

but I know that it doesn't matter what's on your to do list.

Creating time to do things that take care of your wellness, things

that boost your energy in the morning or earlier on in the day,

will set you up to be able to get those things done faster with more

creativity, having more fun. And because you're more

creative and you have more fun doing them, they're going to be far more effective

in your business. So are you

ready for your first okay, mom moment? Because you have to

eat. As ADHD people, we constantly forget to

eat food. And I want you to think about it like this. If you were

to get in your car and it like, had only like an 8th a tank

of gas and you started driving, would you expect the car to be

able to get to a point that's 200 miles away without filling

up the tank? Absolutely not. The car

cannot run without gas. That's just how cars

work. They require gas to run. Human bodies

are similar. We require calories

and water to be able to run effectively. So one

of the most important things that you can do to

guarantee you get things done throughout the day is to eat breakfast

and eat lunch and to make sure you're hydrating throughout the

day. And as I say this, I want to just do a disclaimer. I'm not

a nutritionist. I have no training in

telling people what they should eat. I only know this from my own experience

and from what I have learned from nutritionists who have advised me in the past.

But you need protein and you need carbs. One of the most impactful things

I've done for my adhd and my ability to focus on things throughout

the day is by making sure that I'm getting between 20 and 30 grams of

protein before noon. And actually, the sooner you can eat it

or get it in your system after you wake up, the better it helps your

metabolism. I think I'm actually going to completely misquote the science

here. I think it does something with your blood sugar.

It helps you, like, stabilize it throughout the day. It makes sure that you don't

have crashes, essentially. It helps you have sustained energy.

Now, that said, I know a lot of people out there are like, oh, I'm

cutting carbs. I'm cutting carbs. Dude, stop it. Your brain needs

carbs to work. There's a reason why we've had

carbs for millennia. We've had bread, we've had

grain, we've had rice. I mean, except for people with celiacs, it hasn't killed

anyone. Like, Sophia Loren even pointed to her body

and was like, everyone, this is the result of eating

pasta. You need carbs to be able to think clearly.

So I don't care what you have for breakfast, but make sure that you're getting

some protein and you're getting some carbs. And if possible, limit the amount of

sugar. Sugar for an ADHD brain, I'm sure you've

experienced this. It makes us kind of go crazy. It spikes

our anxiety, we burn through it really fast, and then we

crash and we need a nap. And nothing against naps, I'm a

big fan of a granny nap. I actually have granny naps most

days, at least 20 to 30 minutes. Highly recommend

them. But what I don't recommend is setting yourself up

to need one because you're giving yourself a ton of sugar every

single day, the

next thing that will help you be more productive. And I know,

like, this is an idealized world, right?

For those of you who have kids, who have a lot of responsibility,

do what you can. There's no perfect, okay, you don't have to go

to the gym for a full hour for it to count. Do squats for ten

minutes, do 50 push ups and 50 squats and call that a

day. But exercise studies have shown

that lactic acid, which gathers in your muscles

when you do exercise, actually helps our

brains, the ADHD brain, focus more. That's the least scientific

way I'm going to describe it. But if you can make your muscles burn a

bit in the morning, it's going to help your brain focus later in the day.

And of course, I'm not a personal trainer. I don't know what physical shape you're

in. If there's any question, I want you to check with your doctor before you

do any physical exercise. But know that if you can

and if it's healthy for you, exercise will help you be more effective

in your work. It'll give you more energy, it'll give you more ability to

focus, and it will lower your anxiety.

The next one. I know you're probably tired of hearing this if you don't

already do it and you're not already sold on it. Meditation. Meditation

is one of the best things you can do for your mind to help you

really calm your nervous system and be able to focus on

one task at a time. Now, meditations can come

in all different shapes and sizes. You can have guided meditations

that you can do on an app. Those count. You could do transcendental

meditation, which is what I do, where you sit for 20 minutes twice a day,

and you have a mantra. You can do a walking meditation. The

Japanese call it tree bathing or forest bathing. I'm actually not sure what

they call it, but you can go for a walk in the woods, and it's

very calming. You can go to the beach and you can watch the waves.

Hell, there's a mindfulness meditation technique where you

eat a grape. You eat a grape and you just focus on the grape. And

actually you can eat a raisin. It's more complex. You're focusing on

all the different aspects of a single raisin that you can

observe, and it gets you so hyper focused into it

that ten minutes goes by like nothing. And it's

incredibly calming. And at the root of it, I want you to think about it

this way. If you create a practice where you sit

and you're still and you have your eyes closed. Even if you're

just listening to a guided meditation, you know what you're training your nervous

system on. The world is safe enough for me to sit here

with my eyes closed. Your nervous system takes cues from

your actions. If you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off, your

nervous system is thinking, oh, God, something's wrong. We

shouldn't be like, there's something not safe about our environment. But if

you're sitting with your eyes closed, that's a very

vulnerable position, and you're not moving and you're just

listening to a thing or not, or you have a mantra, whatever,

your nervous system is going to pay attention and think, oh,

cool. It's safe enough for us to sit here with our eyes closed and

be vulnerable. Amazing. And when our nervous systems

understand that, it lowers our anxiety and it makes us

better able to access our creativity and to

get more done later. Slowing down

to go faster actually works. Now, the last

bit I want to talk about is, ooh, what am I going to say next?

Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel,

squirrel, squirrel.

Now, the last bit I want to talk about is rest.

And I want to just come out of the closet and name that. I am

a recovering I'll sleep when I'm dead kind of person. I used to rob

myself asleep at every chance I got. I would constantly burn

the candle at both ends. I would stay up late, I would get up

early, and then I would crash and burn on the weekends

and all weekend. I would just have to recover

from killing myself at work and killing myself having fun and doing

all these different things and not getting enough sleep. Getting enough sleep is one of

the best things you can do for your brain. Studies have shown that your

brain actually doesn't have, like, a waste removal system like the rest

of your body does. Okay. The only time your

brain is actually able to declutter and get rid of dead

cells. Anything that's problematic is while you're

sleeping. It's the only time. So,

literally, if you're not giving yourself enough sleep, and I'm talking seven

to 9 hours, and those of us with ADHD, we actually

need more sleep than neurotypicals because our brains work harder

throughout the day. If we're not getting enough sleep, I want you to imagine,

like, a city dump and people are

dropping off garbage and dropping off garbage, and it's just sitting there and it's

not being moved off site. Like, that's what's happening in your brain.

It's becoming a disgusting, clogged

up, smelly mess, and the people who work there want to quit.

Okay? That's what happens in your brain when you don't get enough sleep. And

I say this knowing that we all live human lives where this

is not always the case. Okay? If you have a dog, I know. You know,

there's moments in the middle of the night where you start hearing that sound,

that sound where they're about to throw up, and then you have to get up,

and you have to deal with it. And if you have kids, worse, sometimes they

come and they're like, mommy, mommy. And then they throw up on you, and then

you have to do laundry. On top of everything, sleep is not always the

thing that we can plan on getting enough of. But if you have the

best intention and you set up your schedule

to enable yourself to get enough sleep, it is an absolute

game changer. And, yes, sometimes your job as

a business owner, when you haven't had enough sleep and

your brain just isn't braining, is to literally go and take a

nap. I know it feels super lazy. It feels very

indulgent. But I want you to look at it from this perspective.

You charge a lot of money for your work. Your clients expect

the best from you. How can you deliver the best

if your brain is not at 100%? You can't.

By you trying to push through exhaustion, you're actually doing

a major disservice to your clients. I want you to imagine it's

almost like a breach of contract. Part of the contract you have with your

clients is that you are going to take care of your brain so that your

brain can provide the service to them at a top level. For

you to fulfill on that contract, you need to have enough sleep. And sometimes to

have enough sleep, you need to take a nap. It's honestly, like, the best

thing about running a business. Like, I don't know why more business gurus don't

try to sell on the naps alone. Like, here they are, like,

sitting on private jets, waving money around, and all they have to do

is just, like, film themselves taking a nap, and I'm sold.

Sign me up for that. Sign me up for, like, what

soft pants are you wearing? Oh, that looks like a cozy weighted blanket. Mm

hmm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, you have the sound machine on.

Oh, I told

you this is not a sexy episode, but maybe I lied.

Cause I know, I know napping does it for me anyway,

and that's it if you wanna be really good in your business, if you

want to be healthy, if you wanna get more stuff done in less

time, you need to slow down. You need to

schedule in these basic

wellness activities into your day. You need to do

them one at a time. No multitasking to

the best of your ability and it will help you have greater

access to your creativity, less anxiety, and a

better ability to figure out the best way to get all the

big projects done in the most lazy way possible

while still being incredibly effective. And if you

really enjoy the sound of my voice and you would like me to guide you

through some meditations, one of the benefits of being a hyper

focused member is that you have access to a library

of guided meditations that are designed to help you

be more focused and more creative in your business. And if you want

access to those, then I urge you to get on the waitlist.

Membership will be opening soon and you can find that

link in the show notes, but it is also

weeniecast.com

hyperfocus. If you're ready to stop being a

weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book

a generate income strategy call with me by going to

weeniecast.com strategycall.

On this call we will talk about your goals, your dreams,

and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit

for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together.

Boom. I got excited about the word smorgasbord.

Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.