Episode 236: Tips for Business Owners with ADHD

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Learning to Thrive as Business Owners with ADHD

Hello, Business Owners with ADHD? The longer I’ve been in business, the more and more I realize just how many of us are neuro-spicy. There’s just something about owning a business in this space that works well for our brains. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t still struggle in some capacity.

So today I wanted to share some tips for those of us with ADHD. First, I’m sharing tips I got from Instagram Followers, and then I’m sharing some of my own tips.

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*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate

The longer I’ve been in business, the more and more I realize just how many of us are neurospicy. There’s just something about owning a business in this space that works well for our brains. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t still struggle in some capacity. So today, I wanted to share some tips for those of us with ADHD.

First, I’m sharing tips that I got from my Instagram followers. And then I’m sharing some of my own tips that I found that work well. You’re listening to episode 236 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.

com slash planner.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head. When you think of marketing welcome friend, this is chasing simple or practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content, marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of

Chasing simple marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.

If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing isn’t is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here. To help make marketing simple and less time consuming, so that you can spend less time on your marketing, and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations about Actionable steps and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

When it comes to creating your monthly content calendar and sitting down to create your content because you’re batching it, right? The first step is not writing in the monthly calendar. It’s not even writing your categories and important dates on the calendar. If that’s where you’re starting with your content planning, well, all you’re creating is a plan.

But what you need is a strategy. What’s the difference? A strategy is like the inner structure of a building, while the plan is the decor. A strategy is what helps you achieve your goals, and your plan is how you achieve them. Your strategy is where you’re leading your audience, and your plan is what you’re talking about and when.

Without having a strategy first, putting together a plan will simply mean pulling ideas out of thin air. So, how do you start with a strategy? By starting with your goals and working backwards to ensure that you’re moving your audience toward them. What are your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals?

And how can you translate them into content your audience wants to ingest? You’ve got to consider those questions before you even begin deciding what it is that you’ll post about. And if you want a simple way to create both your strategy and your plan, grab your Chasing Simple content planner. The planner is my number one bestseller, and for good reason too, because this massive, more than 130 page planner was designed with strategy in mind.

It’s not merely a place to write down what you’re going to post and when. Yes, that’s part of it, but first, you’ll walk through intentional pages full of strategic questions to get your brain moving in the right direction before you even start writing down your topic ideas. In addition to the traditional calendar pages, you’ll find yearly planning pages, monthly prep work, monthly reflection questions, repurposing worksheets, and so much more.

If taking your content to the next level is a goal of yours, the Chase and Simple Content Planner was created for you. Grab yours for just 27 at amandawarfield. com slash planner.

The longer that I have been in business, the more I’ve realized just how many of us are neuro spicy. I am Amanda Warfield. I’m a simplicity focused content marketing strategist and copywriter, and I am on a mission to help course creators and online educators simplify their marketing so that they can make a bigger impact and less time.

And I go live here on this channel every single Monday, 7 p. m. Eastern time, 4 p. m. Pacific time. Sometimes it’s by myself. Sometimes it’s with a guest, but if you get on my email list, you’ll always know ahead of time what I will be sharing about. Today, I want to share tips For those of us that are ADHD or neuro spicy and are running our own businesses, we tend to fall into some really great patterns.

When we are neuro spicey or ADHD and we run our own business, we can also fall into some really big traps because. There are a ton of gifts to having ADHD that come with it and there are a ton of Um things that we can struggle with and I think entrepreneurship Is really attractive to those of us that are a little neuro spicey. Because We have the freedom and flexibility to make it what we need it to be, which is so great. , but I shared on my Instagram account yesterday and I asked for all of my friends with ADHD to share their best tips for other entrepreneurs with ADHD. So if you are watching this live, I would love for you to share in the chat, actually what your top tips are for if you, struggle with ADHD or, have ADHD and you have some tips, I would love for you to share them.

And if you are watching the replay of this, drop them in the comments below and share so that we can all learn from each other. So I’m going to share what my friends on Instagram had to say. about their best tips. And then I’ve also got some of my own tips that I would love to share as well. But just general disclaimer, I’m not a doctor.

I’m not a psychologist. I’m not a therapist. I’m just here to share some tips that have worked for me and that others have seen work for themselves and that’s all. So, okay. First things first. Maria said to set focus timers and this one actually, um, oh, I thought someone else said it, but maybe not, but yes, time limit.

Someone else had said to set time limits. Maria said set focus timers. And this is one that I do constantly. If I don’t set timers, I really, really struggle with my work. So I’m going to get a little deeper into how I use timers in my own business to help with what I’m working on. Um, but Maria, thank you for that.

Setting focus timers is so helpful. Michelle said to make lists of what you need to do and prioritize them and then set time limits. I know that this is so, so helpful. So thank you, Michelle, for sharing this. I think this also can go really well with what Mara shared, which is to use Goblin tools to break tasks down into, tinier pieces and this tool is so stinking cool.

I’m actually going to Share it. I hadn’t heard of this until mara had actually um shared this within my let me uh Get rid of this so that we you can see it with me But until mara had shared this with me on instagram, I had never heard of this and I Was losing my mind about this earlier. I think it’s so cool.

So goblin tools has all kinds of things It’s got magic to do lists Formalize or judge professor estimator compiler chef. I’ll kind of go over really quickly. But basically, chef is, um, here’s what I have here. My ingredients. Here’s the time. What? It’s all there. AI tools, right? Um, compiler is here’s a bunch of brain thoughts.

Or, here’s a bunch of thoughts I have because my brain dump. Turn it into tasks for me. Estimator is, how long is this activity going to take? Um, Professor, give me a crash course. Enter something here and then explain it to me with an example. Um, Judge is, am I misreading the tone of this? So you can say, here’s what, like, here’s the text I’m sending and then judge it and it’ll tell you, like, how your text comes across.

And then I think this one’s really fun. You can take your spicy thoughts and turn them into either more professional, more technical, more accessible, more polite, less snarky, easier to read, blah, blah, blah, all these different things. Um, I just think it’s also fun. But then magic to do list, which I believe is the one that Mara was really specifically talking about is it breaks down your do’s because as important it is for those of us with ADHD, right?

The site is incredible for those of us with ADHD. Or that struggle with, having things on our to do list and then looking at them and feeling really overwhelmed. This is so key. So let’s see what is a great example. Um, Shani, since you’re here live and, uh, I can see you in the chat. I’m going to use something for your business.

Let’s say, um, create new

sticker kit. What you can do here is you can say, How spicy you need it to be so either you need it to not be broken down that much or broken down even more I’m gonna leave it in the middle just for the sake of this example, but you type in what you need So I put create new fall themed sticker kit and add Then you come over to it and there’s this little wand and you click it and it breaks it Down for you.

What you can also do is there are three dots there, and it also has the ability to estimate how much time these things are going to take. Um, and so you can estimate the full project create new fall theme sticker kit. It says it’s going to estimate three hours. Um, But then you can also go into each individual one.

So that gave me 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, like 15 steps. For each of those steps, I can tell it to break it down further and estimate each individual step. And so it tells me things like to find the overall theme and color palette for the fall sticker kit. Brainstorm ideas for different sticker designs to fit the fall theme, create rough sketches, select the most appealing designs.

Like it breaks down that task. So let’s say, okay, right here, it says plan a marketing plan, a marketing strategy for promoting the fall theme sticker kit. I’m going to tell it to break that one down further. Let’s see what it does. Um, and it’s thinking it’s thinking, okay. And it gives. So many. Oh my gosh, that’s so many more.

Another 14 or 15 steps just for that one. So review the features and design identify the target audience, research, current trends, develop key messaging, determine the market channels, so on and so forth. So that, um, that was Mars tip was to use that. Golden. I’ve never heard of it. I’m going to use this all the time now because I’m really bad about doing that to myself where I’ll say, okay, work on this thing.

And then it’s like, okay, but what do I need to do? And then I get overwhelmed. Um, so make that list. And if you need help making that list and setting those time limits, use Goblin Tools, just Google Goblin Tools and it’ll come up. Now, Sandra said to work when your mind will thrive instead of trying to force a schedule that leaves you struggling.

And I think this one is such a great tip too. I’m going to go into details about exactly how I’ve done that, um, in my own business, and then you can use that for what you will. But I think that’s something that We naturally crave, and that’s why we naturally kind of move into entrepreneurship, when we are ADHD or, um, neurospicy or, you know, whatever.

But I don’t think we, we also don’t tend to give ourselves The grace at first either we we start working because we like the idea of the freedom that being an entrepreneur gives us and yet we can sometimes force ourselves to try and stick to what we’re used to and Certain work hours and different things like that.

So I think that is a really important tip too Kate said that accountability is huge. Even if it’s just AI talking through ideas with someone which I Yep Haven’t tried AI yet to do that, but I think that’s really cool. And I think I can definitely say we could do that. If you’ve got this idea that you want to brainstorm using AI to help you do that, I could see how that could be really, really helpful so that it’s, it’s not just you in a, um, what does that call? Um, echo chamber, that’s the word echo chamber, not just you in an echo chamber. So, um, again, for those of you that are here live, that are watching this live, if you have any great tips, go ahead and share them in the chat. Those were all the ones from my friends over on Instagram that they shared with me yesterday.

Um, And if you’re watching the replay, share yours in the comments, I’m getting ready. I know we have at least one tip in the chat right now, um, that I’m going to share, and then I’m going to move into my own tips and how I’ve made some of these work in my own business. So meant to hit the send button last night.

Football distracted me. I get that. I get that. Um, I was going to say creating a block schedule. Yes. Having a time block schedule can be so, so, so helpful. And I’m going to talk about how I’ve used that in my business too. So that’s awesome. Okay. So when it comes to those of us with ADHD, we tend to struggle with focusing time management and, um, organization, right?

Which the more I learned about ADHD, The more I’m like, Oh, I used to think, Oh, I’m so organized. Um, and really what I’ve done is I’ve created systems. I’m not really, I mean, and you know, I’m not naturally organized, I should say, but I’ve learned how to create systems for myself that make sense. Um, they don’t always make sense with the way systems make sense in my husband’s head, which causes conflict sometimes between the two of us.

Um, Bless him. He’s just given up and said, where’s this thing? Because he knows that the system makes sense in my head. Um, but I used to think, oh, I’m so organized and I’ve learned like, oh, this wasn’t a natural skill. It’s something that I had to teach myself in systems. Anyways, we’ll get to that. Um, but we are really gifted with problem solving and creativity and energy.

Typically. I’m not so much for that one, but typically with energy and problem solving and creativity So with time management a couple things that i’ve done to really help With my own time management as an entrepreneur and as a course creator who is not only having to run a Business where i’m serving clients, but i’m also running this whole other side of my business where i’m Um, i’m educating and i’m teaching And I you know, i’m I’ve got a membership and I’m constantly increasing, not increasing, but um, creating content for that membership and serving my membership really, really well.

We actually, we have calls every single week. Um, I’ve got a whole shop full of items, right? So, it’s not, it’s not, I’m doing all of these different things in my business, is what I’m trying to say there. And, um, I’m able to do that because of some of these different things that I’ve done to really help myself as an entrepreneur.

So, time management, routines, time blocking, and, um, alarms are three things that I have done that really, really, really help my focus. And again, like Sandra said, um, Working with yourself and working with your mind and with your body, that’s a huge part of this. So, I know that personally, I work with myself.

really well in the mornings. And as the day goes on, I, my focus, it’s harder and harder for me to focus. Um, this four, four o’clock PM time period for me actually is kind of the worst, like 12 PM to like five 30. I I’m not very productive. So I don’t really try to get a lot of work done during that time period.

Cause I just know that that’s not going to happen. Um, so anyways, working with yourself and creating routines for yourself that are realistic and manageable and that are natural. with your own body’s rhythms and your brain’s rhythms, that’s gonna be really helpful in this. So my daily routine looks like getting up, I usually get up about 430, which again, I’m not, I’m not saying that anyone else should get up at 430.

I don’t, I don’t think there’s like, gotta get up early and like eat that frog or whatever it’s called. Um, I don’t think that’s, What’s necessary, but I do think that it’s necessary to know what works for you. And for me, that works. So I get up at 4. 30. I work for a few hours. And then I have, a little bit of time to get ready, and then I go to my other job, my side hustle.

And then it depends on the day how that looks, but sometimes I come back and I do a little bit of work. Sometimes I don’t, but I know that getting up and first thing in the morning doing my work is actually the best thing for my brain. Also Looking at my routines within the week. So, like I said, every day doesn’t look the same and even when I was full time only working in my business, every day didn’t look the same.

I would block out my days. And so for me right now, Mondays is client work. So I only work from home on Mondays. That is the day that I am This is my day for just my business and , I take client calls on Mondays. I do client work on Mondays like that is my big client day. Tuesdays, I work on my membership.

And so that’s the day that I’m working on my membership. On Wednesdays, that is the day I’m working on any projects that I have currently going on. And that can look like many different things. Right now, I’m working on turning, um, a challenge that I did this summer that got a ton of love, content planning bootcamp.

Um, I’m working on turning that evergreen. And so that’s. That’s my, project right now, but there’s always some project that I’m working on because even though I have clients, I am trying to continually improve my education side of my business, right? My course creation side of my business. And so making sure I have a day for that is so important.

Thursday is always admin work. And then. Because I work at a church, um, Friday and Saturday are my weekend, and then Sunday is my marketing day. So, every single day that I’m working has a specific theme, and that is a routine that I have so that I know when I sit down on any given day what I’m supposed to be working on.

Which, that routine really helps my brain know, okay, this is what we’re focusing on, right? So I’ve got that routine. I’ve got, um, Time blocks in place as well, where I know, okay, I’m going to work instead of saying, so some people, let me, let me back up, some people will say, okay, I’m going to set aside X amount of time to work on said task.

I like to instead say, I’m going to set aside X amount of time to work on a specific theme and whatever I get done in that time I get done. I have found that for myself, that if I am trying to finish something in a certain amount of time. One, I’m not very good at estimating that. Maybe with this goblin tool, I would be able to, um, but I’m not.

I’m not very good at estimating how much time something’s going to take and so I end up frustrated and thinking I can finish something when I just really can’t and you know, some days I’m more focused than others, which also affects how quickly something gets done. So instead I say, okay, here’s a two hour chunk of time that tends to be.

I’ll get to this, um, a bit more with the Pomodoro method, but that tends to be kind of what my, okay, two hour blocks where, okay, this two hour block is for clients, this two hour block is for this, this two hour block is for this, and working in those two hour blocks, and it’s, it’s more of a do a work block on X thing versus, okay, well now go work on this task for this amount of time.

The other thing, alarms, alarms, alarms, alarms. I know, like I said, Maria said, set focus timers. I use, um, studywithme. io right now, but honestly, I used to use just alarms on my phone. I would set alarms for, um, every 25 minutes. And then I would, um, put my phone down and walk away. Using timers though, for focusing while I’m working.

So those 25 minutes, which again, I’ll talk about more when I get to the Pomodoro method, but also just for different things throughout the day. So that if I get hyper focused on something, I don’t lose track of time and I know when to stop. And so if I know, okay, I need to leave the house by a certain time, I will set an alarm for right before I need to leave.

Or when I need to leave about five minutes before I need to leave and then also for whatever time I need to stop what I’m doing to transition and to get ready. Um, so I’ll set a couple different alarms in that case, in case I get hyper focused and just kind of go down rabbit holes, right? Um, timers help with that.

And they help me feel more comfortable allowing myself to not worry so much about the upcoming thing. , Shanie said, all these tips are things I do as well because it helps with the decision fatigue and decrease the day to day decisions I need to make. Yes, absolutely. Anything I can do to help with decisions and decision fatigue, that is always my goal, which a lot of the organization things that I’m going to talk about, that’s what it’s all geared towards.

It’s like, how do I decrease decision fatigue? And if that looks like, , and this is a personal side of things, not business, but that’s like, If that means eating the same lunch all week long, I will do that. So I don’t have to think about it. Or if that means, okay, every single Wednesday, I’m going to work on projects.

Then great. I, you know, like anything I can do to say, okay, one less thing to think about. So, those are some of my best like time management tips that I’ve done. Focusing. First things first is that Palmer door method that I’ve mentioned a few times. This is not, it’s not my method. Um, Some people call it the tomato method, but it basically is, the science says that you can only focus, an adult can only focus for about 20 ish minutes on any given task before we start getting distracted.

So, what I do is I set an alarm for 25 minutes, gives me a little time to like actually get back into the flow of rhythm. I set an alarm for 25 minutes. It goes off, I say, Hey Siri, set an alarm for five minutes. And I do that on my watch. And then I go off and I like walk laps around my house, sometimes I like pick up things.

I try not to do anything with my brain, like mentally though. It’s like, okay, here’s this thing that needs to go in the bathroom. Like let me, as I walk past the bathroom, put it down. You know, things like that. And then I come back down and I sit back down and I sit back down refreshed and clear minded because I’ve stepped away and I’ve come back.

Um, this isn’t a time to pick up your phone. I know if I’m doing that bad news. Um, and you, you just don’t want to get sucked into other things. So this is really a time to just step away, step right back. And then you do four blocks for a full two hour set essentially. And

, you do those that those four blocks about two hours of work and honestly You’d be surprised at how much work you can get done and then you can feel good about like, okay Now I can go redirect my attention somewhere else and maybe that means you do another a different type of work block Or maybe you go work on laundry or you go run errands or whatever that may look like.

Uh, Shani said I need to be better about actually walking away from my breaks. I’ve noticed I will just reset the time and keep working. When I get into those ruts, what I will do is I will set the alarm on my phone and I will put my phone across the room so that I’m physically forced to walk away and it really breaks that concentration.

Um, putting my phone away is also another tip I have for focus is just like, sometimes I will find myself. I have like struggling to focus and so I’ll pick up my phone and scroll and then I’ll put it back down and I’ll try really hard to focus and I can’t so I’ll pick up my phone so when I get caught up in that rut I again I will take my phone and I will literally go stick it in the drawer like across the room um so that I can’t see it which apparently studies have shown that just like you Being able to see your phone like on the desk, even if you’re not touching it, is distracting, which is crazy to me.

Um, makes sense, but it’s just wild. So, yeah, that is another tip I have, is like literally putting your phone up, using it for the alarm, and then putting it across the room so that it forces you to get up and walk away and break that concentration. Pomodoro Method is one that is super helpful for me.

forcing me to focus and then forcing me to pull back out because what I will do is I will start hyper focusing and I will wear myself out quickly, um, because I will sit there and I will hyper focus for an hour or two hours and then I’ve used all of my mental capacity for the entire day in that two hour period because I didn’t give myself those natural breaks.

Batching is something that, um, if you’re new around here, I talk about all the time. I’ve wrote a book about batching. I. Can not more highly suggest batching. Now what I typically teach is content batching. I’ve got an entire course on how to create a content batching system for yourself that will work.

But batching itself is super ADHD friendly because It helps you hyperfocus on something, right? It, it works with that part of your brain that naturally wants to hyperfocus and says, okay, we’ll hyperfocus on this one thing. And so then when you continue to hyperfocus on something, you don’t feel bad because you went down the rabbit hole because it’s what you were supposed to be doing.

Um, so batching content, but also just batching your work in general, which is again, why I tend to work with themed routine days instead of. Well, here’s just my to do list. What do I want to start with or what’s the highest priority? Um, because for me, if I just go, what’s the highest priority. Then I get stuck in rabbit holes and I have our focus too much.

But if I go, okay, I’m going to touch on every aspect of my business throughout the week. I know that at some point those high priorities are getting touched and it’s okay if I go down the rabbit hole and I hyper focus on batching out emails or batching out sending guest pitches or

batching out, creating new shop items, different things like that. So batching out what I’m working on. Just it helps with the hyper focus. Um, so not just with content batching, but batching anything and then Giving yourself rabbit-hole time. Okay. This is the big one for me. Self care and boundaries is really important.

Um, especially as someone with ADHD like ADHD, you have to know when you need to walk away, right? Like, you’ve got to be able to listen to your body and understand when your body is saying, I need a break. Like today is a Monday. I’m supposed to work on client work all day today. I could not focus. Couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t do it. And so I recognized, okay, this is just probably not this, my body, my brain is telling me I need a break. Realistically, I’ve worked a lot lately. We’ve had a lot of events happening, um, with my job and I have been working a ton and I’ve been really tired and My brain decided, okay, we need a break.

So having those boundaries and being able to listen to your body is so hard. It’s so hard, but it’s so important. Um, and so doing that, but then within your boundaries, also recognizing when you just need time to work on, like to have a rabbit hole with your business. Like what I really try hard not to do is work.

at all on Fridays and especially not Friday nights. Friday nights are supposed to be, it’s the night that my husband has, um, he’s got a standing date with his friends where they play video games together every single Friday night, right? That is supposed to be my night to introvert and to be alone and to do what I need to do, to play my own video games, to read, whatever it is I want to do, right?

However, there are some Friday nights where I just really need to have rabbit hole time and there’s you know Something about my business that I’m really excited about I really want to work on Not because I feel like I have to but because I want to and for a long time I struggled with this idea that okay, I’ve set boundaries and so I can’t break them at all I’m really black and white thinker clearly Really really hard sometimes to break out of that.

Um but Like giving myself that grace and that, yes, it’s okay. If you want to go down a rabbit hole with whatever project it is you’re working on, that’s okay. Or for the new project you want to play around with, or a course that you want to take, like those things are okay to give yourself that rabbit hole time, as long as it doesn’t become, Oh, I have to work on these things.

So that is something for focus, uh, chasing the dopamine. Yes. I love that. Yes, having to lean into that dopamine and chasing the dopamine. I do think it’s so important if you are neurospicy to allow yourself that time and to not feel guilty for doing it because that’s something that I struggled with a lot.

Sometimes I still do where I’m like, oh, but I shouldn’t be quote unquote working right now. I should be relaxing. But realistically, honestly, sometimes that is just relaxing for me. If there’s this, this course, I really want to work on or really want to create, or I really want to update this offer. Like sometimes it’s just good and I should be doing that.

So, okay. That’s another focus thing that really helps with that. And let’s be real. Like sometimes that dopamine, like Your brain’s not going to stop thinking about chasing it until you chase it. And so if you don’t provide yourself that outlet for it, you’re going to have a hard time focusing on your other work too.

So that’s what some of this stuff for me is like giving myself the ability, like doing what I need to do outside of work time, typical work time, I guess I should say, to allow myself the ability to focus. Right. Um, okay. What were the other things? Self care and boundaries. Oh, delegating and outsourcing.

This is something that I’ve really naturally leaned into. And so I think it’s something that some of us may naturally lean into already just that idea of delegating and outsourcing. And when there’s something that you know, needs to get done, but you’re not. excited about it. If you can recognize, okay, look, it’s not going to happen.

Who can I find for help? Like that is so important. For example, my podcast editing was the first thing I ever outsourced and it is not cheap, but it’s, it’s the easiest money I spend in my business because I know, I know that if it was left to me, I would not do it. And yet I know how important it is that my podcast goes out consistently every single week for my people.

Right? If I wasn’t paying for it, I meant like episode 230 something of my podcast, right? If I wasn’t paying for this editor, it would not happen. It would not go out. I would not have over 200 episodes. And these episodes are how people learn about me. It’s how they learn about the shop products I have, the courses I have, um, how they learn about working with me one on one, just it’s how they connect with me.

And. That was something that I knew right away, if I didn’t outsource it, it wasn’t going to happen. And I think we naturally can fall into that, of just like, I don’t like doing it, so I don’t want to do it, so I’m not going to do it, but giving yourself that permission to, um, I think a lot of times when people, the advice given for outsourcing is, find something that’s going to bring you ROI right away, and honestly, podcast editing didn’t.

I, I still don’t know if it does, to be honest. Like if I get an a a one-to-one ROI out of it. But let me tell you, it keeps my podcast happening, and that’s enough for me. So I’m not saying just throw your money at anything and everything you don’t like doing. That’s something to think about. It’s okay to pay for help and to ask for that help and to say, okay, I’m ready to move on.

And this just doesn’t, this doesn’t fill my cup. Sometimes they’re just things that like you’re never going to get to, and you’re never going to do them cause you don’t want to do them. Um, okay. Accountability is my last focus thing. This one I have discovered recently. I’ve actually, I think I’ve shared this on my podcast before, but I basically won’t.

I, I won’t invest in memberships anymore that don’t have accountability built into them. And I mean, like real legitimate accountability, um, for example, with Chasing Simple Marketing, the community, we have a weekly call, we have a call every single week. And that is a chance for, and they’re not, it’s not guest educators and it’s not more education.

It’s a weekly call to work on. Work on your stuff on to be held accountable to. Hey, you said you were working on this thing. How’s that going? Right? What questions do you have about this? What? What help do you need right now? It the calls each week. Sometimes it’s silent co working. Sometimes it’s office hours.

But what it boils down to is each and every week is a chance to plug in and to have just that group community around you to say, Oh, yeah, you’re working on this thing. How’s it going? And to focus yourself and get that accountability. There was a long period of time where memberships were basically just like extended courses almost and There’s a time and place for that for sure where we were like where I liked having all that education But now I’m at the point where if I’m gonna be part of a community and I’m gonna pay for a membership it’s gonna have that accountability built into it because having that accountability Just makes it so that you’re so much more likely to focus on the schools that you have for yourself For example, one of the memberships i’m a part of Um, it’s called big break club and their name might have actually changed when I will link to it in the um in the description later because it’s So it’s so good.

Um, if you’re looking to learn how to run paid ads It’s very important. It’s it’s great. They have two calls every single week I can only make one of them But they have two calls every single week where you can just hop in and say Here’s what i’m working on here for any help with a lot of times lately It has been like I pop in i’m like I actually don’t need help with anything And I don’t really have any questions, but this is just a chance for me To hold myself accountable to working on what everything so earlier, I mentioned that I’m turning the challenge evergreen.

The reason I’m turning an evergreen is so I can run ads to it. Right? Um, with running ads to it, like, I can’t start running those ads to until I have an evergreen. And so I show up to those calls every single week and they’re like, what do you have questions on? And sometimes like, I’m just here to listen.

And then while I’m listening, I’m working on it. That goal that I have for myself. And so it’s, I’m holding myself accountable by simply showing up. So anyways, accountability, so key. Um, and a really great way to help focus, right? Cause you’re, you’re live with someone you’re sitting there. You have to show up.

It’s like a meeting, but more low key. And so I know that, okay, at this time each week, I’m going to be working on this thing. Um, even if it’s not my normal day to work on projects, it’s like a bonus period. Okay. So the last thing that we can struggle with is organization. Um, CRM’s client relationship management tools you, you need them.

If you are working with clients, I really love HoneyBook. I recommend it so much. I use it not only for all of my client stuff. I also use it for, um, all of my guest interviews. So every guest that comes through my YouTube channel, my podcast, they are, like, Their forms, everything, it’s all in an automation through HoneyBook, my CRM tool.

Um, project management tools. I am, through and through, a pen and paper planner girl, right? I’ve got my planner, I’ve got my checklist, I, I love these. I am a pen and paper planner girl, even my content planner, right? Pen and paper. However, the pen and paper is secondary to my project management tool. So I use ClickUp, Trello, Asana.

There’s so many out there that really houses my, my business brain. is inside of my project management tool, and then I’m able to use my pen and paper for just my to do list, essentially. Like, okay, what do I need to get done and check off? But I’m able to keep everything I need to keep, from links to notes to information, inside of my project management tool, so that it’s all in one place.

Um, and it’s easily accessible, I think. My husband’s helping me in my business a little bit more so now and earlier today he told me that he didn’t understand the way I have things organized so it works for my brain but but um that’s all you needed to work for right now right uh you need to work for your brain so that everything’s organized and it’s so nice to be able to just go okay I need this affiliate link.

Let me go into this part of my ClickUp. Here’s my affiliate links. Here’s this. Or I want to work on this course. Okay, inside of ClickUp, I’ve got all of my education and

all of my, Login information for all of my courses and the links to log in. So I’m not having to dive through my inbox. Shani said same the pen and paper is helpful to bring things back to the front of mind. Ooh, that’s a really good way to put it. Yes. I find that I’ll fall into the outside out of mind 1 million percent, 1 million percent.

So what I like to do is I like to house everything there in my project management tool. And then like back to the front of the mind, that’s such a good way to put that. Everything goes in here. And I put everything in here from All of the important things I need to remember for today, all of my calls for today, my little reminders for myself, what specific things I’m working on this week, or specifically working on today, versus all the things I could be working on is how it gets broken down.

And then, uh, Automations and systems automations are things that you kind of do once and then you don’t have to do again. So Pinterest, for example, like my Pinterest, is almost fully automated at this point because I have a system in place where we take the, we create the pins for each episode, and then they get uploaded and scheduled out for like months and months at a time, right?

And so my Pinterest stays automated. The act of the pins going live months later, that’s an automation because it gets scheduled for months out and then I have to think about it. The system in place, though, supports that automation because I don’t have the system to, okay, I’ve created My podcast episode and now I’m creating all my graphics and part of creating my graphics for each podcast episode includes creating my Pinterest graphics and when I create my Pinterest graphics, I automatically add them into plan and then from plan I schedule like that part is the system.

And that system supports the automation, or maybe the automation supports the system. Uh, you get what I mean though. Um, where they work together to keep my Pinterest going and feeding itself for months at a time. I’m not thinking about Pinterest 99 percent of the time, right? Once a month I think about Pinterest and then I don’t think about it again.

But yet it’s continuously putting new content out for me. , But even so systems can have to do with automation and automation is great things like again within HoneyBook setting up those automation so that when someone fills out this thing, this gets sent to them one week before their interview, this email gets sent to them.

And these are things I don’t have to do. It just happens naturally without me having to do it myself. Like, the way I walk through the grocery store. I always start on the right with the fruits and veggies, and then I go around to the meat and the dairy, and then I come back, and then I’ll go through the middle aisles as needed, right?

Like, I have a system for the way I work through it. And so I have a system for the way that I Create new offers. I start with this and then I move to this. Anyways. Um, so systems in place can be really, really helpful as well, especially for things that you’re going to do often or often enough on any kind of regular basis.

, I have a system. with my clients, right? Like, pretty much no matter who the client is, our calls look pretty much all the same because I’ve got a system in place and we go through the system on all of our calls. Um, okay. I think that’s all the tips that I’ve written down. However, I have one more tip.

All of that being said, those of us with ADHD, we struggle with focus and organization and time management. And systems and structures can be really, really helpful. However, sometimes you have to throw it all out the window, and you have to just do something different and shake things up in order to focus better.

So, sometimes when I just, nothing’s working, I cannot focus, I’m doing all of my tips and tricks, nothing’s helping, I go work somewhere else. I pick up and just walking into the dining room and working at the dining room table can help me focus. Um, sometimes it means leaving the house and going and getting work done.

Sometimes my brain just needs to have no structure. So, sometimes, If your brain is like, that’s cool, you’ve given me all this structure, now I’m going to rebel against it. That’s normal too. And sometimes you just need to do that. So having backup plans in your mind for things like, okay, if I can’t focus, how can I slightly change things up so that I can focus easier is going to be really helpful.

Okay, I think this is the longest any of my lives have gone so far. Um, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. I would like to incorporate them into my own life as a business owner. Um, I feel like there’s probably 10 million more I could think of, but I wanted to give a quick overview today, and I’m sure this will be a topic that we dive into more and more.

Um, just because it’s something that I find so interesting and also that I live day to day and I think that a lot of us entrepreneurs do. So if you have any tips for other ADHD entrepreneurs in making their life easier, making their business life easier, let us know in the comments. And, um, yeah. If you are looking for accountability, come join us inside of the community.

Like I said, we have calls every single Tuesday morning, um, and it, it’s a really great way to get invested in a community. It’s 27 a month. Um, get invested in the community. That will have your back and that will hold you accountable and give you a chance each week. If you’re like, the only time I get focused work on my project right now is through this call each week, then that’s great.

That’s still, that’s an hour each week, at least sometimes our calls are two hours. Um, but it’s at least an hour each week to get focused work done. So for some of those things that you’re trying to do to move the needle. So, if you’re looking for community Chasing Simple Marketing, the community is a great place to start.

Head to amandawarfield. com slash community. I’ll link to it down in the description as well, but I’d love to see you in there. And like I said, we have a call every single Tuesday morning afternoon for those of you in the Eastern time zone and that is it. So if you want more. From this series. If you’d like to see more videos like this, let me know in the comments as well.

And otherwise I will see you next Monday. Same time, same place for another episode with a special guest.

So, that is your action step for this week, actually, is to find some sort of community, some sort of place for you to get involved in and get invested that will help give you that focus time. Your book recommendation for this week is Bridesmaid for Hire by Megan Quinn. This one, I think I might have read out of order.

It may not be the first one in this series, world, whatever, um, but it was a really cute little story. It wasn’t a little story. It was a story about, um, this woman who her business is planning weddings and things like that. And then she’s also kind of brainstorming, like, what would it look like to have this section of my business where you can hire bridesmaids, um, to help fill out your wedding party and different things like that.

And then it’s also, it’s a rom com, love story, all of that fun stuff. But as a business owner, I appreciated that aspect of it, of the, um, The having a business and then, you know, what’s next? What am I planning? All those things. I’ve also just always found the concept of Bridesmaids for Hire to be fascinating.

So anyways, Bridesmaids for Hire by Megan Quinn. I thought it was a really great book and a fun read. So we will link to that in the show notes. And until next time my friend, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.