Transcription
This video, I'm going to show you five ADHD principles that can help you double your productivity. And these principles are going to be around awareness, environment, clarity, evidence, and time. I'm going to explain what each one of those things mean and how I can use them in my daily life.
If you don't know who I am, my name is Ali Caragulli. I'm NASA postdocctor fellow. Also the founder of Next Level Systems, a behavior engineering company. It's currently doing about $300-$400,000 per month mark. And these are five things that I do day-to-day that actually help me maintain my productivity levels.
Now, the very first one is awareness. And this is something that a lot of people don't understand is first of all, you need to know what kind of brain you have, especially whether you have ADHD or not, how high up you are on the AD spectrum. And ADHD is a very stupid name. A lot of people think ADHD is attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. I think that's a really stupid outdated name that describes a symptom, not the root cause. The root causes of ADHD are actually dopamine dysregulation and executive dysfunction.
What What does that mean? Dopamine dregulation, that's the molecule in your body or in your brain more specifically that helps you initiate actions based on interest and curiosity. There's also neuropepinephrine which is based on urgency. Um, but then executive dysfunction is basically like the wiring of the frontal part of your brain that allows you to initiate tasks, uh, finish tasks, plan things out, be able to visualize things, sense time. So, if you're someone higher up on the spectrum, those are the two things that you struggle with. And as a result, you have attention issues and you may have hyperactivity issues. Hyperactivity does not mean like a little child is running around. Hyperactivity could be like like you shaking your leg or like you just kind of being jittery or like just you kind of not being being kind kind of restless.
So just having awareness that you even have ADHD in the first place is huge. And knowing exactly where you are on that ADHD spectrum is also huge. And that way, like knowing that you have this dopamine dysregulation issue and it's just executive functioning that is such a big relief because now you're not going to beat yourself up over like discipline, willpower, crap of of that nature. So the very first thing that principle that is is really helpful is awareness of who you are, what your brain looks like, why it works. I have other videos going into that into more detail. I'll reference them towards the end of the video.
Second principle which is extremely environment extremely important is environment. And that's because as an ADHDer, you have a brain that is more external world facing than internal world facing. What I mean by that is because of your executive dysfunctioning, your internal world a lot of times is fried up. Your working memory is fried up. A lot of things inside of your brain internally are fried up. As a result, you look to the outside world for external cues. That's why people who have ADHD can be more likely to like seek external validation or rely on external environment or external stimulus to tell them who they are.
Like for example, something that happens to me very frequently is if I look at myself in the mirror and like let's say my beard like grows out or what not or like my hair looks different or whatnot and I like look at myself in the mirror and I like don't recognize who I am even like in a very subtle way, like I get very sad and I get very depressed cuz I'm like, who is this person? But then like if I go shave my beard, do my hair, whatnot and and I look like how I usually look to myself, like I then I'm in a good mood because I'm like, okay, yeah, that's actually who I am. So like this is kind of terrifying. Like something as simple as like forgetting who you are, like literally forgetting who you are, that's how externally facing ADHDers usually are. That's why environment is absolutely crucial.
So the feedback, the the the lesson around environment is if you're an ADHDer and your environment usually looks like this, a lot of ADHDers unfortunately environment looks like this. Like try as hard as you can to make it look like this. And the way the simple framework around this is just figure out like write down your goal, like either on a piece of paper or somewhere, like your actual goal, like let's say whether it's to scale a business or what not or like live your dream life, like whatever is your goal, try to consolidate it and be make it as simple as possible and then go through a filtration process in your desk where like literally go one by one and be like, does this actually help me achieve my goal right now? Or like, does this actually help me take action on achieve my goal? If not, then the my favorite word in the whole dictionary is delete. Just go ahead and delete this thing. Get rid of it, subtract it, hide it somewhere, put it something like that.
Um, and my desk actually looks something like this. Actually, as a matter of fact, as of the time, I'm sitting right here. I literally have a desk, a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, a paper, and a screen. And and my desk is like very empty. It's very clear. And because of that, because of my environment is not cluttered, my brain is not cluttered. I'm actually able to to very clearly think. That's one of the examples of how like an external environment can influence the behavior of an ADHD. So, try try your best to do this. My advice is, uh, try like set a set a set part of your evening routine every single night to clear up your desk, knowing that if you wake up to a cluttered messy desk that looks like this, I promise you, you're not going to be very productive and you might even be a little bit sad.
Now principle number three is clarity. Now this is something that's very, very important and this is something that a lot of people don't understand is that clarity actually comes from action, not the other way around. This is something that breaks my heart. A lot of ADHD entrepreneurs, they're kind of waiting for clarity to act because they're like, "Oh, I don't know what to work on. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Oh, and I'll spouse what not." But there's something I learned which is like clarity actually comes from action, not the other way around. Like you can't sit here and wait to have clarity over what action to take. It's by initiating a task and beginning that the clarity actually reveals itself because action produces information.
This is something that's actually very famous in the startup world. Uh, there's there's many entrepreneurs who will tell you like if you don't know what to do, like still do something because doing that something is going to reveal information and is going to help you figure out what the next step is. This is again going back to the second principle we talked about and that a lot of ADHDers are external world facing, meaning that when when I go and take an action, like I don't know, go and I pick up this water bottle and I drink water from it or something that nature, that gives me feedback about the real world based on the external real world and based on that feedback, then I stimulate my brain with ideas and insights and that tells me what the next idea is. So like what I need to do is usually like five ideas down the line. But the only way for me to get that idea number five is to act on the idea right now and to act on the action right now and then be able to go ahead and do that.
Obviously, if you have a decluttered environment and a nice environment and you put the work work in your face and you add friction to the things you don't want to do and you remove friction from things that you should be doing. Like if you do all these kind of external things, it's only going to make it easy to take action. As a result of taking action, you'll have the clarity and then you'll be able to create this clarity action loop which is only going to help you take the right action going forward.
Once you go ahead and build that principle number four that that I really, really like, especially with ADHD, again going back to principle two, because you're very external world facing, you need to build evidence. You need to create a large amount of evidence and this is something that's very underrated. People don't talk about this. There's kind of like the law of attraction gurus that are telling you that you just kind of carve out your identity and you shout affirmations in the mirror and you just like say, "I am this thing." But then there's like zero real world evidence reinforcing what it is. So that actually backfires and does the opposite because now you're like not trusting yourself and you're lacking self-trust because you're saying something but you're acting in a different way. So there's cognitive dissonance and you're just going to go doom scroll to avoid that kind of discomfort.
On the other hand, there's the other school of thought which is like some people are like, "No, you only just work hard. There's no such thing as like identity or like beliefs or blah blah blah. Just go ahead and just do it, bro." Like unfortunately, these people, because you don't have the belief or the self-image of someone who is actually like a doer or whatnot, uh, you're not going to act in congruence with your identity. So, you may not actually take action even though you optimize only for taking action.
So, what's the cure? The cure is to actually have both. Is to develop and design an identity of a doer. But again, create the environment and create a system that helps you take action in such a way such that you generate evidence. If you're not generating daily evidence that you are who you say you are, even in the smallest of ways, like you're you're you're not going to actually become that person. And likewise, if you don't actually set an intention to be the kind of person you want to be, well, then all the action you're going to take is going to be meaningless or the lack of action because you haven't set that intention.
So, this is a lot of something a lot of people don't understand. You can change your identity. You can rewire your brain, but after you carve out that identity of yours and and you design the specific beliefs, you need to go and create daily evidence to reinforce those beliefs. Only then that's actually going to create you to believe that you are who you say you are. And there's not going to be cognitive dissonance and that's going to wire those new new circuits inside your brain.
Last but not least, the most important one, especially with ADHD, is a principle around time, especially timeliness. And there's this diagram I have over here that's very, very important and very cool. Um, this diagram basically tells you inside the mind of an ADHDer who does not have like a discrete clock. What I mean by that is usually neurotypical people have like 7:15, 8:17, like 6:05, 11:11, like time is usually very specific and and kind of accurate and discrete. With ADHDers, because time is very blurred because the circuitry that we have that tracks time is really, really fried up. It's not functioning properly. All you end up with is like tomorrow, later, someday in the future.
So what that creates is it creates procrastination because as part and when you study executive functions and I actually have this book right here, it's called Executive Functions by Dr. Russell Barkley. It's a really good book. It's kind of expensive and it's very academic. I would actually not recommend it if you're not like a PhD. Um, but oops, but basically that book teaches that there's something called executive functions, which is like basically the circuitry of your brain that's operating and with ADHD, that a big part of that executive functioning is your time sensing capabilities is fried up and and what that does is it affects your ability to estimate tasks and to see like task duration, for example. And because you're not visualizing tasks, then you end up just putting them off because you're not clear on what the tasks are.
So time blindness is something that's extremely, extremely important and the way I've found to actually manage it is simply two things. You put clocks in your face at all times, but also you use a calendar-based productivity system. What I mean by that is because time blindness is the ultimate core issue for ADHD, any productivity system that you build that's outside your calendar, that's not married to time, I instantly know that you're not very productive. I instantly know that you're probably not above $100K per month. Why? Because with ADHD, your ultimate constraint is time sensing and time blindness. And if you have a to-do list that is not married to a calendar that tells you when you should be doing that thing on the to-do list, you're going to constantly have that disconnect between the things you want to do and when you're actually going to do them. And that to-do list is quickly going to turn into later, late, someday in the future, tomorrow, blah blah. It's not going to be right now or it's not going to be at a specific time.
So as an ADHDer, you need an external scheduling tool or an external discrete time management or time sensing tool. And the best way I have found to do that is by using Google Calendar with Google Tasks as my to-do list. There's a special way in which I use it that's very ADHD friendly and fun. We cover it very in-depth in my program Next Peak Performance. If you're curious what that looks like, there's going to be a link below where you can learn more about that. See how you can become someone who gets six months worth of work in six weeks. But besides that, in general, timeliness is going to be something that's very, very important for you to tackle if you have ADHD.
My my very simple recommendation to you is just start by wearing a watch at all times. Have a clock in your face at all times. Um, and try to, to your best of ability, use a calendar-based productivity system. Make sure that your calendar becomes your friend. Don't set a calendar that's too rigid that you hate, but at the same time, don't leave your calendar being very empty.
Also, one final tip, like make sure if you adopt the calendar as your to-do list, make it your only to-do list or your only productivity system. If you have calendar here, post-it here, Notion here, I don't know, flashcards, sticky notes, blah blah blah, all that kind of stuff. Uh, and you have all these places, all the systems all over the place, you're not going to trust your calendar. You're not going to trust any of these. Actually, if you have one system you use that's very holistic, uh, then you're going to start trusting it and you're going to start liking it a lot more.
Again, if you need the help building a personalized productivity system, go ahead and click on the link below. Other than that, go ahead and watch some of my other videos around time management or around timeliness or around ADHD in general. And maybe you can even leave a comment and say hi. I'll see you around. Peace, love.