Transcription
Hey guys, my name is Ali Al carulli. I'm a post-doctoral fellow, systems engineer, and a part-time entrepreneur. In this video, I'm going to show you why eating the Frog simply does not work if you have ADHD. And I'm going to explain this very in-depth. I'm going to explain this concept which you may have already heard of. You've probably heard self-help gurus, people on YouTube, like people all over the place saying, "You got to eat the Frog. You got to, like, very first thing, just like, find the most difficult thing, like, just the most terrifying, overwhelming thing in the world, just put it in front of you and just eat it."
And then theory about it is well-intentioned and it does work for a lot of people, neurotypical people especially. It's if I eat a frog first thing in the morning, if I do something that sucks in the morning, I'm a lot more likely to do things that suck throughout the day. Now, it gets tricky when it comes into personal productivity because for ADHDers, especially, this may backfire. I'm going to explain why.
Now, the reason I understand this so well is I am an ADHD myself, and I used to hear this advice all the time. And I would try to identify my frog, the biggest, like, leverage test, the needle mover. And I would set it and and I'd try to do it in the morning. And then I, sometimes it would work, sometimes it would not work. Most of the times that it did not work, I would end up feeling like crap and and my self-esteem would chronically get lower and lower because I can't eat the Frog, even though self-help gurus are telling me I need to eat the Frog. But anyway, enough with that rant. I'm just going to explain very simply why it doesn't work.
For years now, the idea of eating the Frog, again, finding the most difficult task to do in the morning. Um, there is, there is two problems with that, and these problems are, are amplified for ADHDers. Now, again, if you remember, what, what is ADHD? ADHD just means that your, your dopamine levels on average are lower than the average person, meaning you're typically less motivated to do something that is, uh, daunting or something that you may not want to do, such as eating a frog.
Now, to make things worse, you are distractible, and you are overwhelmed, and you have all, like, a million things going on in your mind. And when you sit down to do something, and if that thing is, is very difficult and very terrifying, because of your distractibility and you're overwhelmed, you're be a lot more likely to start thinking about other things and start looking for other things to do. So, there are two clear, simple reasons why, um, the eating the Frog is not going to work. And then I'm going to talk about a four-step protocol that you can do instead that can actually help you get things done.
And the, again, the very first one is the lack of motion. Is that when you're, when you're, when you're trying to start your tasks, you're already at, like, a static condition. You're not, you're not moving, you're not making progress, you have zero momentum, and you want to get started and generate that momentum. But if you make it the expectation that the Frog, or the very first task you need to tackle, is going to be a difficult one, and and you make it like really tough on yourself, then that's going to lead to the second thing, which is overwhelm. Which is going to be like, "Oh man, like, how do I start this thing? This thing is, is tough, this thing is difficult. Oh, I don't want to do it." And you keep kind of avoiding it and what not. And then on top of that, you know unconsciously that you have another to-do list that's like very long, and your to-do list is long, and you're, and you're going nowhere near it. It is never going to work.
So anyway, what, why, like, that explains why it doesn't work. What works instead? This is what has worked for me. And this is even something I was just talking to my team about tonight that worked so well for me. Is I usually follow just a very simple four-step protocol whenever I'm trying to get things done, whenever I have a frog, or like I have a big project that I need to tackle. I actually don't put it first, like, not even close. I actually put it last.
But before I even, before I even get started on my to-do list, there are a few things I do as an ADHD. And and and these are like simple, very simple, obvious things. If you're not doing them, you're leaving so much productivity on the table. Very first thing I do is something called "drut." And that's very often, again, with distractibility and overwhelm and and inattentiveness with ADHD, you want to make your life very easy by decluttering your environment. Very first thing. If your desk has like all sorts of crap all over it, if your bed is not made, if the piano behind you has like three plates on it that from food you haven't like, uh, I don't know, stopped eating, or there's some full, like, if your room is not, uh, organized and clean and decluttered, your brain is going to be very cluttered and very disorganized and very, like, it's gonna be very difficult to initiate tasks.
So, very often, a form of productive procrastination that works really well for me is I usually get up and intentionally procrastinate by cleaning my desk, cleaning my room, making my bed, doing all the things behind me. I call it my "drut" protocol. I try to get out of the out of the rut that I'm in, or usually the, the state of stalling that I'm in. And the very first, very simple lever mover is just a clean environment.
Once I do that, then I try to detangle. And what I mean by that is I grab like a pen and paper, or I go on my task list, or what not, and I write down everything that I need to do. Every, I, I make a list of everything that I need to do, uh, in a to-do list. I ideally put my phone away. This thing is very dangerous if you have this thing near you while trying to come up with a to-do list. It is never going to work because you're always going to be like, "Oh, let me check." Like, like making a to-do list or writing down the list of things you got to do is not nearly as interesting as grabbing your phone and scrolling through Instagram. So ideally, this thing is not even near you. You throw it somewhere.
And once I write that down, again, let's say pen, paper, calendar, task, whatever, does this kind of doesn't matter, it's up to your preference. Uh, one simple hack that works really well for me, and this is optional, that's why it's in a different color here, is what I call "hardware." There's a hardware step. And again, everything we're talking about here is usually is software, software, like kind of like code that's running inside your, your brain, like ideas, thoughts, thinking patterns, what not. Hardware is more of like physiological stuff, like how your body, like, like hitting at the dopamine itself.
And one thing I do to boost my hardware, or like improve my hardware, which will naturally improve the software, is I either go for a very quick run, do some jumping jacks, or do a cold shower. And the cold shower is actually insane. Like, it's something I, I don't do the entire shower cold. I start warm, and I again, ruminate and think and procrastinate and do that all that in my head, what not. But the very last 30 seconds or the very last minute, I turn it into very cold, and and that basically puts me in a state where like, "Okay, I'm a lot more alert, I'm a lot more focused." You don't have to do that. You can just do literally, like, you can jump rope for like, like two, three minutes, you can do jumping jacks, you can do any of that. And and honestly, even that, this entire step is optional. This is just if you want to amplify your baseline dopamine to a point where you make it a lot more likely, uh, to get started.
And then finally, the last step is inertia. And you focus on inertia. With ADHD, starting and task initiation is the most difficult thing. So your most important job, once you have made that to-do list, is not rank it by the order of importance, but rather rank it by the order of things that are easiest to do. And here's where this can be controversial because sometimes many people think, "Oh, I don't want to do busy work. I don't want to do mindless work. I want to do the important things." Well, this to-do list is ideally of important things, like a list of things that are important. But let's say you list like five or 10 things or three things or what not, and and obviously they're all important, but maybe one is more important than the other than the other. What matters, what, what matters is that you get it done at the end of the day. It does not matter if you get it done very first thing.
So let's say you give yourself a 12-hour time window to get seven things done. Doesn't matter which one you start with. No, because at the end of the day, you're going to have it done. Well, then start with the easiest one. Start with the one that is like so easy to, to, to like, it's the anti-frog. Don't eat the frog. Eat like the very delicious chicken wing, or the very delicious, I don't know, whatever it is, your favorite food in the world. Start with something that's very easy because what that's going to do is going to give you some momentum. It's going to give you some inertia. It's going to kill the distractability, and it's going to increase the likelihood that you go into hyperfocus mode.
And then you tick it off, and guess what? You feel good about yourself. You feel a win. And then the second, and the third, and and so on. And and you reduce your list. And as your list gets shorter and shorter, you have less and less overwhelm, and you gain momentum. And by the time you get to, uh, the very last thing you want to do, then you get it done, and it's done with speed. And bam, life is good. And we have just used your ADHD brain in your favor rather than against it.
And how do I know it works? Because I literally just did this tonight where I, I had to make this YouTube video. And in, I had had like a list of other things that were easier, such as reply to Facebook comments, some of the ads that I'm running, I reply to a few messages, do a few things, what not. And and intuitively, my brain is like, "Oh, like, maybe like you got to eat the Frog. You got to do the easiest thing first." But I have to remind myself, "Nope, nope, nope. Inertia. I need to just get started, get things moving, and what not." And that's going to get me into the groove of things. And that's exactly what happened.
So, this is just one small technique that just kind of gives you an example of how the ADHD brain works. If you are someone who who would like to increase your productivity, you'd like to increase your productivity, I made a video that has a more comprehensive, detailed overview of how to actually double your productivity beyond just overwhelm, lack of motivation, uh, time blindness, what not. So, just go ahead and watch that. That thing is going to be like a, a true masterclass. You're going to love it. I'll see you over there. Peace, love.