April 3, 2025 • 39 mins
🎧 Feel exhausted from making simple decisions?
If you have ADHD, you’re not imagining it—decision fatigue is real, and it can drain your energy before the day even starts.
From choosing what to wear to bigger life choices, the mental overload can lead to avoidance, overwhelm, or impulsive decisions you later regret.
In this episode, Renee discusses:
✅ Why decision fatigue hits women with ADHD harder
✅ How executive dysfunction, perfectionism, time constraints and emotional overwhelm play a role
✅ The hidden toll of choices becoming monumental—and what to do about it
✅ Simple strategies to reduce decision overwhelm and make choices easier
If you’re tired of feeling stuck or second-guessing or going down the rabbit hole with every decision, this episode is for you!
Hit play and start making decisions with more ease and less stress.
💬 Have a strategy that works for you? Send Renee a DM to share your ideas!
🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe for more ADHD-friendly tips!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
SA
(00:29):
hello. Welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I am Renee Allen, the host of this podcast, and I'm excited to
be here today. I have. Well, let's just back
up a little bit. I haven't been on here in a little while because
I pre recorded the last few episodes and then it got
me out of the habit of coming up here and so I'm excited to
be here again. Feels like it's been a long time, but maybe not
(00:52):
for you. But I am going to talk to you
today about decision making and I think I've
talked about being overwhelmed with decisions, but I want to
talk more about decision fatigue today because I've been
experiencing that lately and I don't know if you have or
not too, but it's just really interesting to notice
(01:17):
that you have some patterns, notice that you do some things.
Maybe you struggle with making decisions in certain situations,
but not really understand why. And once you understand that
you have ADHD or you're pretty sure you have adhd,
you have all these symptoms and then you understand why executive
(01:41):
dysfunction would lead to these patterns or these
struggles that you have. I find it really helpful because one,
I can come up with some strategies. Two, I can give
myself a break. I can identify when it's a good time
to just back up a little bit. So there
(02:02):
are a lot of reasons that we could have problems making decisions
where you're just like, I can't decide, I can't decide.
And one might be that
you put a lot of pressure on yourself to make the right
decision. And it's not necessarily perfectionist complex.
It could be. It could be like, I don't want to do this unless
(02:23):
it's just right. It could be that, but it could be that
you've seen when you made the wrong choice before, it didn't
have a good outcome. And so with that experience, you're thinking,
I really want to get this right. I'm like that with food because
I'm so picky. I'm such a picky eater that when I
go to a restaurant, it's stressful for me unless I know what
my favorite thing is. I've ordered it before, I am going to
(02:47):
get it again. And from the time I was little, I
used to go to Baskin Robbins or one of those ice cream
places that had a lot of flavors and I would choose vanilla.
And some people thought it was because I was picky eater.
Or they'd think, don't get vanilla. That's such a plain thing
to get. But I liked vanilla. And sometimes I'd try
(03:07):
another flavor and I didn't like it.
Eventually I liked other things, like rocky road and stuff.
But sometimes you like one flavor perfect from one brand,
but then you try another brand and you don't like it.
I found since I moved to the south, I didn't know that
Florida was the south. But when I moved to Florida, they have
an ice cream brand. Maybe it's in a lot of places, but it's not
in California called Blue bell. And when I first moved
(03:30):
here, I bought the vanilla. And they're pretty big.
I think they're actually a half gallon, not a, you know, a smaller
and smaller carton, like a lot of them.
And I got the vanilla, and I thought, this is amazing.
It tastes like homemade ice cream. And then I bought it the
next time, and it didn't taste so good.
And I thought sometimes my taste buds kind of fail on me.
And I was really bummed. I thought, I can't believe I thought
(03:52):
this ice cream was so good. And it's not good.
I realized, I don't know, a few months
later, I was in a different grocery store, different publix,
and there was a vanilla that had a different name.
It had a different rim. Instead of it being a gold rim,
it was a dark brown rim. And it was actually a different kind
of vanilla. That's the one I like. I don't want the other
one. And you get to an age, at least I do, where
(04:13):
I don't want to waste the calories on an ice cream that I don't
like. And so anyway, when I go to a restaurant,
I don't want to spend the money on food that I don't like, or
I don't want to sit there and have regret that I didn't
order something else. So I tend to look at other people's
tables and see, oh, did they get lasagna?
What does their lasagna look like? Did they get this?
(04:35):
Or, you know, and I'll ask the waitress or server or whoever
it is, waiter, what they like, what they recommend.
But most of the time, I get the same thing over and over.
And if you sit down. Well, a few things.
If you're going to a restaurant. I know I mentioned this before.
Sorry if I repeat a lot, but, you know, we all forget things
anyway, so we can use reminders. But if you
(04:59):
have a restaurant that you know you're going to and you can look
up the menu in advance, it can be helpful.
But it's not always fail safe. You, you know, sometimes you check
things out and then you go. And you still don't like it or just
wasn't what you thought or it's too salty or something.
But that can really help to make decisions at a time
when you're relaxed and you have time to think about it and
research and read people's opinions or reviews or things like
(05:21):
that on a restaurant. But I just recognized on
a trip that I took with my daughter a few weeks ago, and that
counter, what are they called, like a counter restaurant,
where you walk up to the counter and you order.
That is super stressful for me, especially if I haven't been
there before, maybe only once or twice.
(05:43):
Because I go up there and even though I might
look online, you get up there and they've just got all these
signs and so you're trying to make sense of them and.
And then sometimes they have a system like, oh, you get your.
You tell this person what salad you want and then you walk a
few feet over and then you tell that person what soup you want
and then you walk over there and then you tell them if you want
a dessert or if you want a rol. Or it could be, you know,
(06:04):
this is where your tortilla is. Choose your tortilla, then choose
your protein, then choose your. You know, it's kind of like,
I don't know the system. I don't know the system.
So I'm trying to make a decision while trying to process information.
And I do way better with written information.
So if I'm asking a question, the person's telling me it's still
not making sense in my brain. And then I look up at the
screen and I don't see. Because a lot of people
(06:28):
with adhd, and I'm one of them, read something like a
text or an email or something, and some words will jump out at
you and the other ones won't. And when you're in a more
high pressure situation, it might even happen to a greater degree.
And so you're trying to figure out what do you even have
and who do I talk to? And the person saying, move along or no,
(06:50):
don't tell me yet, go tell them. It's just so confusing.
And if I was just to do it by myself, that
wouldn't even be as bad as having somebody with you
that's wishing you'd just do it. And whether it's
the person that's at the counter or the person that's with you,
(07:10):
like, you know, they're just telling you and it's still not making
sense to you. So I find that super, super stressful because decision
making is already a problem. It's already a challenge for
a lot of women with adhd. And part of that
is the problem of prioritizing information, deciding, you
(07:30):
know, coming to a decision, coming to a conclusion, what's more
important, what's, what's the better thing to order.
And when you are exhausting your mental energy, that is
going to function even worse, in my opinion.
I'm not an expert. In my opinion, in my experience, if you're
maxing out your brain, it's just like if you're exercising.
If you're exercising and you're more fatigued, you've just done
(07:52):
a hiit workout, you're going to go and try to get
on the spin bike. And it might not be as easy because you've
just done your cardio, you've just maxed out those muscles.
You're pre fatigued. Is that what they call it?
Pre fatigue, the muscles? And so you're already more tired.
And I've experienced this with my workouts.
I've experienced this when I've taught more advanced yoga class.
(08:14):
At the end of the day, after doing a lower body workout
and two other yoga classes or something like that.
I've done that. And I'll just feel like my legs can't hold this
Warrior 2 like it usually does because it is fatigued.
It is fatigued. And the same thing can happen to our brains is
our brains get fatigued and they're already not functioning in
(08:37):
the neurotypical way. And then you add that to it.
You add the pressure of time, you add the pressure
of whether they're giving it to you or you're just sensing it,
you're just feeling it. The pressure of somebody else wishing
that you'd hurry. So that's time and emotional response and
then just not being able to make sense
(09:01):
of the directions or reading the information or hearing
it well. So with executive function, you need to
be able to take instructions and go and put them into
steps. And if you've made cookies before, you
probably know first thing. The butter in the olden days, shortening
first the butter, then the sugar and then the other
(09:26):
wet stuff, wet eggs and things. You know there's an order to
it. You know that system, when you look at a recipe, it's probably
not as hard to figure it out because you've done that before.
Even if you haven't done exactly that, you know the order.
And so if everything's new to you, you go to a
Drive through and you're not sure where you're supposed to
(09:47):
go to pay. You're not sure. I don't know if any of that stresses
you out. It stresses me out. Stresses me out.
And I don't know, don't know what to do
about all of that. Except for maybe if I did
go to a walk up place that I hadn't been to before,
what do they call it? Counter order.
I'm sorry, I don't come here with all the terms because even
(10:08):
if I did, I wouldn't remember them. But the counter serve or
something like that. But I could stand back and watch other people
order first. And actually asking questions isn't always helpful.
Sometimes I just have to look and let it process.
And this, this restaurant that I went to the other day or
a couple weeks ago, one of the problems was, is one of
(10:29):
the screens, there were two, three screens with menus on
them. One of them had a picture that was flashing, which made
me think that the menu flashed too. Like whatever it was telling
me if I just waited, it would tell me if I could
just get chicken strips without getting a meal.
And it didn't tell me that it kept waiting for it to change
and it wasn't changing. And I'm old enough that I, I'm
(10:51):
kind of getting past feeling embarrassed with people in public,
but with my own family or friends or something, it.
I don't know. Yeah, it can be a lot.
It can just. It can just be a lot. It can interfere with life
and the enjoyment of it. There are other situations where decision
making is hard. And one is when you
(11:14):
have too many decisions to make. I heard long ago that Costco
or Sam's Club, those kind of places made decisions easier for
us because they took out the variety.
So you're not getting to choose between 50 kinds of crackers,
you're choosing between maybe four kinds of crackers.
And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool.
(11:35):
That's kind of cool. They made it easier.
You don't always find everything that you want there.
But they have taken it from this gigantic multiple choice to
just a couple choices of cereal, a couple choices of maybe they
have more soda. But it does make it simpler when we don't
have as many choices. And if you're someone who is on your
computer and you keep opening tabs and tabs and tabs and tabs,
(11:57):
and all of a sudden you think, what was I working on?
What was I doing? You've clouded your brain because you
don't know that's Indicative of how many thoughts
you've had and how many. How many little paths you've gone
down. And the same thing can be with decisions.
When we're considering all the information, it can be a bit too
(12:18):
much. So sometimes just simplifying it or maybe deciding before
you go somewhere, whether you write lists or whatever to go to
a store, deciding, I'm going to go get this.
I'm going to go get this. If I see something else, I'll grab
it. But make it. Make it a little simpler.
I do like the. The ordering the groceries online to
be delivered because one, I don't have to spend the time going
to the store, but two, it saves your cart.
(12:41):
So from the time before, it'll say, like last night when
I was ordering. Or was it this morning?
I think it was this morning, but it's being delivered in the
same day, so it's coming today. But it said, here's some things
you got last time. Do you want to get them this time?
And I thought, oh, yeah, I didn't get bananas.
I can't believe I didn't get bananas.
Got bananas. So it helps me remember things, which is nice.
But decisions can also feel heightened if
(13:07):
your emotions are heightened and if you have emotional dysregulation,
which I talked about with Megan a few episodes ago, emotional
dysregulation and what she had said about it was
slightly different than what I learned, but it could be both.
Is that our brains have a way, you
(13:28):
know, our emotions will flood in. Our brains have a way of managing
those emotions so that they're not too explosive,
not so much that it's hard to handle or maybe
disruptive in life. And with adhd, you may
(13:51):
not be able to screen those emotions as easily.
And what Megan talked about was we have a baseline,
and it's just going over and under and over and under and.
And I didn't know. Well, I think emotional rollercoaster people,
there are people who have more of the highs and the lows, but
there are some people who have more of the lows, not the highs
or more of the anger and not the whatever.
(14:12):
And if you're having emotions, maybe of fear,
oh, no, what if I don't do the right thing here?
What if I don't? Did I even. Just trying to decide, should
I do something? Should I commit to this?
Should I not commit to this? Somebody asked me to do that.
That's a decision, too. And that can be stressful because you're
(14:33):
weighing if you're going to disappoint Somebody kind of
the people pleasing thing. Or if you're going to drop the ball,
if you're not going to honor your commitment, if you're going
to forget, all those emotions can come in so they could feel
heavier just because the emotional impact can be greater.
I'm trying, I'm laughing because I'm trying not to stress you
out just by telling you all the things that could be.
(14:53):
What could go wrong will go wrong. It doesn't always go wrong,
but it can. But yeah. And then overthinking.
If you are someone who has the thoughts that it just bounce
around like popcorn and you have more thoughts than you
can count in a day, you may be overthinking a
decision because you're going to think of possibilities.
(15:14):
You're going to think about what about this, what about that,
what about this, what about that? And the truth is probably
most of that won't happen or most of it doesn't matter as much
to the other person. But I do that too because
we have creative minds and we might think of more
possibilities. So trying to simplify that, trying to bring
(15:37):
that down to just a few choices, it's this or that.
I'm either gonna buy this person a ticket to a
concert for Christmas or I'm gonna get her some perfume, whatever
it is, pick a category or choose one category and
just go for it. Try not to make the decisions.
Just become this process that goes on and on or stresses
(15:58):
you out. And then if you have a life that is already
maxing out your brain in some way then trying to
add decisions on with, with that. It's, it's like that
maxed out brain to begin with that can make it harder because
you're already starting in
(16:19):
a less able to function way and
other people can experience differently.
I usually think of my brain's going crazy, I'm maxing out.
Other people might feel burnout, overwhelm or just that
kind of numbness of I don't know anymore.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever gone to a store especially
(16:41):
late at night? I used to. Well, I still do sometimes
but I used to like to go to Marshalls right before closing.
They were open till 9:30 unless it was Christmas time.
And sometimes I just go there to unwind at the end of
the day and then just think of who has birthday coming up or
is there Mother's Day or this or that.
And then I'd walk around and think of things.
(17:01):
And there were times where I just couldn't make
a decision. I just couldn't make a decision.
And then I thought, now because your brain isn't working as
well, you're walking around like a zombie and you just need to
go home and go to bed. I learned that it was okay to walk
out of a store without buying anything.
I mean, obviously it is, but I used to think it was a waste of
time if I did that. Now I don't. But anytime that you, you
(17:25):
know, you're, you're kind of fatigued from the end of the day
or you've just had a lot going on, you've already
had to make other kinds of decisions.
Even the tiniest things can make can be hard and then
impulse control. So this is something I
find fascinating with, with making decisions is
(17:47):
if you have the hyperactive, impulsive part type of adhd,
sometimes you take all this great care
in making a decision
and then you come to like a logical conclusion.
And other times you just like think, I don't
(18:10):
know, I'm just gonna do this right now because I'm tired of thinking
about it. And I was laughing with my daughter in law about this
couple days ago because this is crazy.
But maybe not crazy deep, but it was crazy to me.
I went to her house so she had, she just had a baby.
So my son and daughter in law had a baby a week ago and I
went to their house and there was a blanket by the
(18:32):
front door that looked like a blanket that I almost bought
her for Christmas. And I thought, I don't think I bought
that for Christmas. And so my brain was just completely confused.
Like how would she know about that website or who got
that for her if I didn't? And it was a day of Christmas.
Early Black Friday deals before Black Friday.
But when everyone was trying to get you spend money before Black
(18:54):
Friday like a week before. And so it's like, oh, these sales,
I, I gotta, I gotta get it now before the sale goes
away, half off, you know. And I found this website that just
had the cutest little knickknacks and blankets and clothes and
things like that and kind of boho y but cute designs and
stuff. So then I started thinking, okay, who would I get these
(19:14):
for? My daughter in law, my daughter, my other daughter.
So I was thinking, oh, even for myself, should I get this?
So I keep putting in the cart and keep putting things in the
cart and imagining it being for that person.
But then, well, what if this doesn't fit?
I don't want to have to return it. And this isn't probably easy
to return. And maybe this is final sale, you know, and
then you start reading reviews. Does it fit bigger?
(19:36):
What if it's, you know, tighten the bust and you know, just went
on and on. Then I see these blankets and they are the cutest
blankets. So I go through and I read every
review for every blanket that's on sale and choose one for
each of them. But then I read one review that says, but
they're kind of thin. And I thought, so I took them all out of
the cart because the blankets were kind of expensive, even half
(19:59):
off. And I thought if you get them that that's their gift.
And so then I thought, well, maybe I'll get my daughter in law
maternity clothes instead. This has gone on for probably two
days. So I find this maternity website that
has these cute little stretchy overalls and they were half
off and they were pretty expensive to begin with.
But I thought these are better quality than the ones on Amazon.
(20:20):
These are better quality. I shouldn't say all this.
I don't. Amazon people come after me.
But, but they were, they were better quality.
And my, my daughter, one of my daughters here had bought the
Amazon ones and I tried them on and I didn't like them that much
on me, but they looked cute on her. But anyway, so I thought,
I'm gonna get those for her. Well, then I get two of them and
then it says if you get three, then you get each one for a lower
(20:40):
price. So I get three and I have to choose a
different color, you know, and then I, I get it to the cart and
it lets me get a fourth pair for 29.99 or something.
And they're, I don't know, it was all more than I wanted to
spend. But all the, I did that impulse thing, I
just thought, just buy it, just buy it, just buy it.
You've been trying to make decisions for days.
And so it was my first Christmas purchase of the year.
(21:05):
And I remember thinking that was a really good lesson in
how not to do it because I still ended up spending a
lot of money even though it was on sale.
But I didn't give it a lot of thought once
I got to the cart and thought how much money was in it.
Because part of what was going through my mind was, you're getting
four pair for the price of whatever.
(21:25):
And, but it was still, you know, like my friend's husband says,
you, you can, you know, you can make me go broke.
We could go broke on all the money you save.
So anyway, but, so when I see this
blanket at my son and Daughter in law's house.
I'm like, wait, why do you have this blanket?
Did I buy it? And forget that I bought it because that
(21:46):
wouldn't be unheard of either. And so I'm telling her about it
a couple of days ago because I think she was still at the hospital
when I. When I saw the blanket or something.
And we were. And she said, no, no, I saw it online and
put it on a wish list and my parents bought it for me.
But I said, you, you were this, like this big learning experience
(22:06):
with, with Christmas shopping. Because I made such an impulse
purchase. It ended up being good because think.
Because thankfully she liked them and because I think
the idea was like, I'll get a pair of these for myself.
And then I tried them on, it didn't look good on me.
And. And yeah, so she loved him. She wears them, she
wore them during her pregnancy, and she's wearing a
(22:27):
postpartum. So it ended up being a good purchase.
But
I just felt like I completely acted out of impulse.
And if you ever do that, like, I'm just gonna do this
now because I don't wanna think about it anymore.
Or if you're even just doing something like a craft or
you're sewing. I'm not good at sewing.
But if you're doing something like that and you don't have
(22:51):
the wherewithal to think of, like, how do I
do this? I'm gonna read the instructions.
I want to really understand it. And then you think, no, I'll
just do it. And then you mess it up.
I'd messed up way too many crafts because I think I'll just do
it my way and then it doesn't work out.
But you know, it's not like it ends, you know, leads to the
end of the world, but it can be stressful and you can
(23:14):
just get a lot of anxiety, frustration, waste money, waste time.
And
just knowing that there's a reason for that.
It's not because you. It's not because you
are not smart. It's not because you don't know how
(23:35):
to make decisions. It's just that your brain already lacks
the ability to function properly if you have this aspect
of adhd, of making decisions in a clear way,
or organizing instructions in a clear way, or prioritizing.
(23:56):
So you add those to a situation where there
might be somebody waiting for you or they're asking for your
credit card while you're trying to decide, do you want to sign
up for this thing? And you can just use your email or your.
You know you're like, what? Don't ask me questions.
You know, like, I'm trying to think right now.
You're trying to make me. And I know that's, you know, what they're
(24:18):
doing. But even, even the, on, on websites and stuff,
you know, you'll go to order something and then it will say,
do you want these five things too? Or you'll buy something.
You'll be so happy you finally bought something on a website.
And then it will say, do you want to sign up for this?
And you think, please stop asking me questions.
Please stop asking me questions. I thought I was done making
decisions. I can't do that anymore. So anytime you can simplify
(24:42):
and click a little X and stop making those decisions,
it can be helpful. It could be really helpful.
Even when I listen to podcasts, I would rather download the
podcasts and put them all in order. It depends on the app that
you use. Like, I think Apple podcasts is really easy to make
a playlist and have them in order. I tend to use Amazon Music
(25:03):
more now because it doesn't always show ads for a lot of
the podcasts I like and I, I get tired of the
ads, but
it's nice to not have to choose. I'd rather go and choose
a whole playlist of episodes to listen to and just let
them roll. And I, I don't mind, you know, every once in a
while I can, I can scroll past and ads, I just don't like the
(25:25):
ads if I'm using them to go. Go to sleep, which I do sometimes.
So anyway, so what are some strategies?
I probably mentioned some throughout, but anytime you can make
a decision in bulk, like, I'm going to plan
what I'm going to wear for the week now I just made a decision
in bulk on, on that episode with carried.
(25:47):
I don't know if you listened to it or watched it, but we were
talking about decision making and I was telling her that it's
gotten harder as a. You know, my ADHD has gotten worse.
Deciding on what earrings to make or to wear.
Not to make. I don't make earrings. Deciding which earrings to
wear or if I'm going to wear a necklace.
Sometimes I'll think, okay, I'll put this necklace on.
(26:08):
And then it doesn't work with the neckline of what
I'm wearing. And then I change my mind and then it's hard to
clasp it. And with the earrings, you know, what if
I can't find the back? And anyway, it's just, yeah, it's one
More thing to think about. And I don't want to make that decision.
I used to think it was fun. It was no problem long ago
to choose earrings, but now it is. So that was the strategy
(26:31):
I came up with while I was talking to her, was I'm just gonna
wear posts. The ones that, you know how some of them have.
I hope this isn't too loud with the microphone.
I'm touching my earring. But some of them have longer posts.
And then when you go to sleep, they touch your neck.
And then you can't sleep as well. These ones don't.
So I thought, I'll just wear normal posts for as long as
I can. And then maybe if I go out on the
(26:54):
weekend or go to church or something, I'll.
I'll wear something a little fancier, but streamlining what you
can. I teach yoga, so most of the time I'm wearing yoga clothes.
And when I do need to go somewhere else, like we went to
dinner last night, I'm like, I gotta think of something else
to put on. It's a lot easier when you can kind of
bulk do it in bulk, do it in batches, and even meals.
(27:17):
A lot of people like to do meal planning or just say Taco Tuesday
or my cousin used to have it all planned out.
Like when I was pasta. I used to. The most I did was
Friday nights was pizza. That was usually the only thing.
But anytime that you can make that decision in
advance makes your day a little easier.
Especially if you do it in advance and it takes
(27:41):
that time limit off. Because if I'm planning out my outfit the
night before, I feel no time pressure unless my husband's already
asleep and I'm thinking I should turn out the lights.
But most of the time I'm thinking, oh, what should I wear?
And I'm doing this in a very relaxed mind.
And it's not that hard. But if I wait until it's five
minutes to go run in there, grab something, it won't be as
(28:03):
easy. I'll be throwing things right and left.
My closet will get messy again. So it's not easy.
But so doing it before it's time is always a
good thing. That's one of my favorite, favorite strategies for
lots of things. You know, just even making your morning go better,
but even just minimizing what, what food
(28:24):
you have in your house. I don't know, I'm.
I'm not as good with that, but I do kind of eat the same
thing over and over and over. But I like to have Choices.
Same with my clothing. My husband's all about, if you have fewer
clothes, then you don't have as much laundry to do.
You don't have to make as many choices.
But I like to have choice. I like to have options, even though
I pretty much choose the same thing over and over.
(28:44):
You know when they say, go through your closet, anything you
haven't worn in a year or six months, I have things in there
I probably haven't worn for years that I won't get rid of them
because I want to have them as an option.
Maybe someday I will. But another thing you could do is
just talk to people. Talk to people and get their advice.
Like I said, in a restaurant, you can ask somebody else.
Have you eaten this before? What did you think?
(29:04):
Of course, people have different tastes, so that's not always
the best idea. But even deciding what to wear, I had a
roommate that would always come in, and she'd have one shoe,
one foot in each shoe, and she'd hold up one foot, like
behind, so you'd only see the one foot with the dress.
And she'd say, which one? Which one?
And it was. And at the time, we used to always think it was silly,
but it was actually a really good idea because we could look
(29:27):
and see. Now I do the opposite. I put on
a pair of shoes and go, no, I put on another pair of shoes.
But if you have somebody to ask. And I've even done that with
my daughter. My youngest daughter lives at home, and she's a
lot younger than I am. I was almost 35 when I had her.
But I do question my outfits sometimes because
(29:47):
I don't know fashion anymore. I teach yoga and.
And I buy what's comfortable. So I'll say, is this even, you
know, remotely in style? Yeah, mom, that's cute.
Okay, good. Or should I wear these boots or should I wear that?
She'll help me. So asking for help to help you
make the decision, and then. And if somebody gives you
(30:07):
an answer that you think, oh, maybe I shouldn't have done
that, don't second guess your gut if you feel good
about it. I just bought a birthday present for a daughter who
had a birthday yesterday, and I showed it to my husband, and
I said, do you think that she'll like this?
He goes, yeah, I think she'll really like it.
And I thought, I think so, too. And I asked my youngest daughter,
and she kind of went, eh. And I thought, well, I feel good about
(30:28):
it. And she loved it. She loved it. So I was glad but my, I
think my daughter just, you know, she just didn't know.
And sometimes people really have good insight and sometimes they
just help you weigh it out in your mind and then also using other
people, using other people, but asking other people, involving
other people, delegating to other people when you can,
when you can not having that weight, always be on yourself
(30:51):
to make the decisions or just taking yourself out of any
steps that you possibly can. I've been doing that lately and
this isn't as much with decisions, but my kids will ask me,
you know, do you think dad is able to do this?
And I'll say, yeah, I probably ask, text dad or ask
dad because they love to ask me first.
I think it's easier for them to ask me.
(31:13):
But yeah, take yourself out of anything that you can.
And even if it's simple things, you know, you
know, if it's, if it's causing more to your plate
and it's good for other people to be involved.
If you have even younger kids, they love to be involved.
So it might take a little more management on your part, but at
(31:33):
some point, you know, a little four year old with
a sponge, my grandson loves to be on the floor with
the sponge and cleaning it. Gets it cleaner than it would be
if I, if he didn't do it because I wouldn't be doing it.
So every, every little bit helps. But what else, what
else, what else? Even just
(31:55):
making a decision like, like I'll just, I'll just go with
my first choice or I'll only allow myself this amount of time
to, to decide. You can make little rules like that,
you know, I'm going to set a buzzer and in five minutes I just
got to decide. And that's what people do in game shows.
Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't, but they don't spend
all day doing it. So anyway, anyway, I think that's
(32:18):
probably it for now. I don't even know.
It's funny because this new way of recording.
Oh, it does tell me how long I've been recording.
When I was just doing audio, I could see it
the whole time and I'd stop, you know, if I wanted to and
get a drink of water or something. And now that I'm doing video
(32:40):
too, if you're on YouTube. Hello, thanks for watching.
I waited till afternoon to record today, so it's a little
darker in here, but. And I got highlights if
you can't tell. It was a brave thing for me because I'm,
I think I've done it once which was a bad decision.
I decided to do it myself and it was not good.
(33:00):
I don't have any experience with coloring like that.
And so I went to a beauty. So what's
it called? Beauty school. And asked because I heard that they
did it a lot cheaper because I just didn't have the money to
pay for someone to do highlights. And they did fix it, but
it took. Took something like three hours.
It's really long because it was somebody new.
(33:22):
Hopefully they're not frying my hair, but it was fine.
But this is, I don't know, this new strategy I have and
we'll see how it goes. Trying to be brave, I made a
decision and I'm sticking with it. Right.
Even that with haircuts. Do you do that with haircuts?
Are you, are you somebody who's consistent with
(33:43):
their decisions? Because that would be easier if I decided every
six weeks, every two months, I'm going to go in and get my
hair cut or I'm going to go in and do this.
I wouldn't have to think about it. I could just schedule it
and do it. But I've been more like, no, I don't
need to cut my hair because I just pull it back.
(34:03):
And then nine months later, a year later, three months
later, whatever it is, it never has a pattern.
I think I want to get my hair cut, but it has to be today, which
is so dumb. But it's that impulse. It's like I want
to get it out of my system, I want to do it now.
I don't want to think about it. But yeah, I don't know,
you might have personal tips you can share with me because clearly
(34:25):
decision making, I don't know, it can be hard.
At the same time, I have to give some kudos to women
with adhd because if you have ADHD and you
are creative minded, you're smart, you are resourceful,
often the ideas that we have and the hyper focusability,
(34:50):
the curiosity, that's a great combination for being super
resourceful. I don't know if anybody's ever said to you, you're
so resourceful, like how do you, how do you find out all
these things? How do you do this? You're able to make
good decisions, you're able to gather good information because
you like to research and you like to find it out.
(35:11):
And a lot of people don't know where to look for that information.
So that can be really wonderful and powerful too.
So, yeah, I think that'll be it for today.
I'm teaching Another class in an hour.
Yoga, yoga, yoga, if you're one. I actually have a different
website for. I don't know. I'm redoing my website right
now. I know I keep saying I'm going in, I'm not.
(35:31):
But I have another website for yoga, and this
is another decision. I decided to save money and transfer my
website and transfer my yoga library.
And I was learning how to do it and I was doing a good
job, but I'm finding that on YouTube, it's uploading them
at bad quality. And these are HD videos.
(35:56):
I took great care to record them in high def and
they're recording blurry. They're uploading blurry to YouTube.
I still have all the files on the other thing, but the other
subscription expires. If I don't renew it, it'll expire in
six days. So that's why I thought, stop
trying to figure this out. Just go record your podcast.
(36:21):
You know, even just setting up my new website, I
keep making it more complicated than I need to.
I keep second guessing I need to just say, these are going
to be your colors. Set it up, put it up so
people can find things if they need to.
And then later, if you want to change
(36:42):
a color, you can. But right now I'm just like, which pink?
But this pink looks good with that. I think I have about,
I don't know, 12 different pinks in my little Google Doc
right now. But I hope you're doing well.
I love knowing that you're out there.
I know that it's not simple going through life
(37:03):
with adhd. It's also. It's also a
great adventure. I think if, if, especially once you find out
that your brain works in a unique way and that there
are a lot, a lot of people who experience that too.
And it's. It's really fun to compare to strategize, because
(37:29):
we're not all the same in our adhd, but we do share so
many, so many traits and so many struggles.
And it's good to bond together and just know
that we can support each other and give each other
ideas because we've all got them. I'm not the only one with the
ideas, but thank you so much for being here.
(37:50):
I think this will be it for real. This is my
for real goodbye. So thanks so much for being here.
Bye.
I butter my toast, spread on some grape
(38:11):
jelly. I don't mean to fuss, but
I'm a chef and a good wine. My grandma
can't hear me now Breakfast is done.
Getting colder ever older so I run
(38:34):
Open windows broken shadow
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
(39:07):
Rewind I run out of time to sing
Melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me.
SA
(00:29):
hello. Welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I am Renee Allen, the host of this podcast, and I'm excited to
be here today. I have. Well, let's just back
up a little bit. I haven't been on here in a little while because
I pre recorded the last few episodes and then it got
me out of the habit of coming up here and so I'm excited to
be here again. Feels like it's been a long time, but maybe not
(00:52):
for you. But I am going to talk to you
today about decision making and I think I've
talked about being overwhelmed with decisions, but I want to
talk more about decision fatigue today because I've been
experiencing that lately and I don't know if you have or
not too, but it's just really interesting to notice
(01:17):
that you have some patterns, notice that you do some things.
Maybe you struggle with making decisions in certain situations,
but not really understand why. And once you understand that
you have ADHD or you're pretty sure you have adhd,
you have all these symptoms and then you understand why executive
(01:41):
dysfunction would lead to these patterns or these
struggles that you have. I find it really helpful because one,
I can come up with some strategies. Two, I can give
myself a break. I can identify when it's a good time
to just back up a little bit. So there
(02:02):
are a lot of reasons that we could have problems making decisions
where you're just like, I can't decide, I can't decide.
And one might be that
you put a lot of pressure on yourself to make the right
decision. And it's not necessarily perfectionist complex.
It could be. It could be like, I don't want to do this unless
(02:23):
it's just right. It could be that, but it could be that
you've seen when you made the wrong choice before, it didn't
have a good outcome. And so with that experience, you're thinking,
I really want to get this right. I'm like that with food because
I'm so picky. I'm such a picky eater that when I
go to a restaurant, it's stressful for me unless I know what
my favorite thing is. I've ordered it before, I am going to
(02:47):
get it again. And from the time I was little, I
used to go to Baskin Robbins or one of those ice cream
places that had a lot of flavors and I would choose vanilla.
And some people thought it was because I was picky eater.
Or they'd think, don't get vanilla. That's such a plain thing
to get. But I liked vanilla. And sometimes I'd try
(03:07):
another flavor and I didn't like it.
Eventually I liked other things, like rocky road and stuff.
But sometimes you like one flavor perfect from one brand,
but then you try another brand and you don't like it.
I found since I moved to the south, I didn't know that
Florida was the south. But when I moved to Florida, they have
an ice cream brand. Maybe it's in a lot of places, but it's not
in California called Blue bell. And when I first moved
(03:30):
here, I bought the vanilla. And they're pretty big.
I think they're actually a half gallon, not a, you know, a smaller
and smaller carton, like a lot of them.
And I got the vanilla, and I thought, this is amazing.
It tastes like homemade ice cream. And then I bought it the
next time, and it didn't taste so good.
And I thought sometimes my taste buds kind of fail on me.
And I was really bummed. I thought, I can't believe I thought
(03:52):
this ice cream was so good. And it's not good.
I realized, I don't know, a few months
later, I was in a different grocery store, different publix,
and there was a vanilla that had a different name.
It had a different rim. Instead of it being a gold rim,
it was a dark brown rim. And it was actually a different kind
of vanilla. That's the one I like. I don't want the other
one. And you get to an age, at least I do, where
(04:13):
I don't want to waste the calories on an ice cream that I don't
like. And so anyway, when I go to a restaurant,
I don't want to spend the money on food that I don't like, or
I don't want to sit there and have regret that I didn't
order something else. So I tend to look at other people's
tables and see, oh, did they get lasagna?
What does their lasagna look like? Did they get this?
(04:35):
Or, you know, and I'll ask the waitress or server or whoever
it is, waiter, what they like, what they recommend.
But most of the time, I get the same thing over and over.
And if you sit down. Well, a few things.
If you're going to a restaurant. I know I mentioned this before.
Sorry if I repeat a lot, but, you know, we all forget things
anyway, so we can use reminders. But if you
(04:59):
have a restaurant that you know you're going to and you can look
up the menu in advance, it can be helpful.
But it's not always fail safe. You, you know, sometimes you check
things out and then you go. And you still don't like it or just
wasn't what you thought or it's too salty or something.
But that can really help to make decisions at a time
when you're relaxed and you have time to think about it and
research and read people's opinions or reviews or things like
(05:21):
that on a restaurant. But I just recognized on
a trip that I took with my daughter a few weeks ago, and that
counter, what are they called, like a counter restaurant,
where you walk up to the counter and you order.
That is super stressful for me, especially if I haven't been
there before, maybe only once or twice.
(05:43):
Because I go up there and even though I might
look online, you get up there and they've just got all these
signs and so you're trying to make sense of them and.
And then sometimes they have a system like, oh, you get your.
You tell this person what salad you want and then you walk a
few feet over and then you tell that person what soup you want
and then you walk over there and then you tell them if you want
a dessert or if you want a rol. Or it could be, you know,
(06:04):
this is where your tortilla is. Choose your tortilla, then choose
your protein, then choose your. You know, it's kind of like,
I don't know the system. I don't know the system.
So I'm trying to make a decision while trying to process information.
And I do way better with written information.
So if I'm asking a question, the person's telling me it's still
not making sense in my brain. And then I look up at the
screen and I don't see. Because a lot of people
(06:28):
with adhd, and I'm one of them, read something like a
text or an email or something, and some words will jump out at
you and the other ones won't. And when you're in a more
high pressure situation, it might even happen to a greater degree.
And so you're trying to figure out what do you even have
and who do I talk to? And the person saying, move along or no,
(06:50):
don't tell me yet, go tell them. It's just so confusing.
And if I was just to do it by myself, that
wouldn't even be as bad as having somebody with you
that's wishing you'd just do it. And whether it's
the person that's at the counter or the person that's with you,
(07:10):
like, you know, they're just telling you and it's still not making
sense to you. So I find that super, super stressful because decision
making is already a problem. It's already a challenge for
a lot of women with adhd. And part of that
is the problem of prioritizing information, deciding, you
(07:30):
know, coming to a decision, coming to a conclusion, what's more
important, what's, what's the better thing to order.
And when you are exhausting your mental energy, that is
going to function even worse, in my opinion.
I'm not an expert. In my opinion, in my experience, if you're
maxing out your brain, it's just like if you're exercising.
If you're exercising and you're more fatigued, you've just done
(07:52):
a hiit workout, you're going to go and try to get
on the spin bike. And it might not be as easy because you've
just done your cardio, you've just maxed out those muscles.
You're pre fatigued. Is that what they call it?
Pre fatigue, the muscles? And so you're already more tired.
And I've experienced this with my workouts.
I've experienced this when I've taught more advanced yoga class.
(08:14):
At the end of the day, after doing a lower body workout
and two other yoga classes or something like that.
I've done that. And I'll just feel like my legs can't hold this
Warrior 2 like it usually does because it is fatigued.
It is fatigued. And the same thing can happen to our brains is
our brains get fatigued and they're already not functioning in
(08:37):
the neurotypical way. And then you add that to it.
You add the pressure of time, you add the pressure
of whether they're giving it to you or you're just sensing it,
you're just feeling it. The pressure of somebody else wishing
that you'd hurry. So that's time and emotional response and
then just not being able to make sense
(09:01):
of the directions or reading the information or hearing
it well. So with executive function, you need to
be able to take instructions and go and put them into
steps. And if you've made cookies before, you
probably know first thing. The butter in the olden days, shortening
first the butter, then the sugar and then the other
(09:26):
wet stuff, wet eggs and things. You know there's an order to
it. You know that system, when you look at a recipe, it's probably
not as hard to figure it out because you've done that before.
Even if you haven't done exactly that, you know the order.
And so if everything's new to you, you go to a
Drive through and you're not sure where you're supposed to
(09:47):
go to pay. You're not sure. I don't know if any of that stresses
you out. It stresses me out. Stresses me out.
And I don't know, don't know what to do
about all of that. Except for maybe if I did
go to a walk up place that I hadn't been to before,
what do they call it? Counter order.
I'm sorry, I don't come here with all the terms because even
(10:08):
if I did, I wouldn't remember them. But the counter serve or
something like that. But I could stand back and watch other people
order first. And actually asking questions isn't always helpful.
Sometimes I just have to look and let it process.
And this, this restaurant that I went to the other day or
a couple weeks ago, one of the problems was, is one of
(10:29):
the screens, there were two, three screens with menus on
them. One of them had a picture that was flashing, which made
me think that the menu flashed too. Like whatever it was telling
me if I just waited, it would tell me if I could
just get chicken strips without getting a meal.
And it didn't tell me that it kept waiting for it to change
and it wasn't changing. And I'm old enough that I, I'm
(10:51):
kind of getting past feeling embarrassed with people in public,
but with my own family or friends or something, it.
I don't know. Yeah, it can be a lot.
It can just. It can just be a lot. It can interfere with life
and the enjoyment of it. There are other situations where decision
making is hard. And one is when you
(11:14):
have too many decisions to make. I heard long ago that Costco
or Sam's Club, those kind of places made decisions easier for
us because they took out the variety.
So you're not getting to choose between 50 kinds of crackers,
you're choosing between maybe four kinds of crackers.
And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool.
(11:35):
That's kind of cool. They made it easier.
You don't always find everything that you want there.
But they have taken it from this gigantic multiple choice to
just a couple choices of cereal, a couple choices of maybe they
have more soda. But it does make it simpler when we don't
have as many choices. And if you're someone who is on your
computer and you keep opening tabs and tabs and tabs and tabs,
(11:57):
and all of a sudden you think, what was I working on?
What was I doing? You've clouded your brain because you
don't know that's Indicative of how many thoughts
you've had and how many. How many little paths you've gone
down. And the same thing can be with decisions.
When we're considering all the information, it can be a bit too
(12:18):
much. So sometimes just simplifying it or maybe deciding before
you go somewhere, whether you write lists or whatever to go to
a store, deciding, I'm going to go get this.
I'm going to go get this. If I see something else, I'll grab
it. But make it. Make it a little simpler.
I do like the. The ordering the groceries online to
be delivered because one, I don't have to spend the time going
to the store, but two, it saves your cart.
(12:41):
So from the time before, it'll say, like last night when
I was ordering. Or was it this morning?
I think it was this morning, but it's being delivered in the
same day, so it's coming today. But it said, here's some things
you got last time. Do you want to get them this time?
And I thought, oh, yeah, I didn't get bananas.
I can't believe I didn't get bananas.
Got bananas. So it helps me remember things, which is nice.
But decisions can also feel heightened if
(13:07):
your emotions are heightened and if you have emotional dysregulation,
which I talked about with Megan a few episodes ago, emotional
dysregulation and what she had said about it was
slightly different than what I learned, but it could be both.
Is that our brains have a way, you
(13:28):
know, our emotions will flood in. Our brains have a way of managing
those emotions so that they're not too explosive,
not so much that it's hard to handle or maybe
disruptive in life. And with adhd, you may
(13:51):
not be able to screen those emotions as easily.
And what Megan talked about was we have a baseline,
and it's just going over and under and over and under and.
And I didn't know. Well, I think emotional rollercoaster people,
there are people who have more of the highs and the lows, but
there are some people who have more of the lows, not the highs
or more of the anger and not the whatever.
(14:12):
And if you're having emotions, maybe of fear,
oh, no, what if I don't do the right thing here?
What if I don't? Did I even. Just trying to decide, should
I do something? Should I commit to this?
Should I not commit to this? Somebody asked me to do that.
That's a decision, too. And that can be stressful because you're
(14:33):
weighing if you're going to disappoint Somebody kind of
the people pleasing thing. Or if you're going to drop the ball,
if you're not going to honor your commitment, if you're going
to forget, all those emotions can come in so they could feel
heavier just because the emotional impact can be greater.
I'm trying, I'm laughing because I'm trying not to stress you
out just by telling you all the things that could be.
(14:53):
What could go wrong will go wrong. It doesn't always go wrong,
but it can. But yeah. And then overthinking.
If you are someone who has the thoughts that it just bounce
around like popcorn and you have more thoughts than you
can count in a day, you may be overthinking a
decision because you're going to think of possibilities.
(15:14):
You're going to think about what about this, what about that,
what about this, what about that? And the truth is probably
most of that won't happen or most of it doesn't matter as much
to the other person. But I do that too because
we have creative minds and we might think of more
possibilities. So trying to simplify that, trying to bring
(15:37):
that down to just a few choices, it's this or that.
I'm either gonna buy this person a ticket to a
concert for Christmas or I'm gonna get her some perfume, whatever
it is, pick a category or choose one category and
just go for it. Try not to make the decisions.
Just become this process that goes on and on or stresses
(15:58):
you out. And then if you have a life that is already
maxing out your brain in some way then trying to
add decisions on with, with that. It's, it's like that
maxed out brain to begin with that can make it harder because
you're already starting in
(16:19):
a less able to function way and
other people can experience differently.
I usually think of my brain's going crazy, I'm maxing out.
Other people might feel burnout, overwhelm or just that
kind of numbness of I don't know anymore.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever gone to a store especially
(16:41):
late at night? I used to. Well, I still do sometimes
but I used to like to go to Marshalls right before closing.
They were open till 9:30 unless it was Christmas time.
And sometimes I just go there to unwind at the end of
the day and then just think of who has birthday coming up or
is there Mother's Day or this or that.
And then I'd walk around and think of things.
(17:01):
And there were times where I just couldn't make
a decision. I just couldn't make a decision.
And then I thought, now because your brain isn't working as
well, you're walking around like a zombie and you just need to
go home and go to bed. I learned that it was okay to walk
out of a store without buying anything.
I mean, obviously it is, but I used to think it was a waste of
time if I did that. Now I don't. But anytime that you, you
(17:25):
know, you're, you're kind of fatigued from the end of the day
or you've just had a lot going on, you've already
had to make other kinds of decisions.
Even the tiniest things can make can be hard and then
impulse control. So this is something I
find fascinating with, with making decisions is
(17:47):
if you have the hyperactive, impulsive part type of adhd,
sometimes you take all this great care
in making a decision
and then you come to like a logical conclusion.
And other times you just like think, I don't
(18:10):
know, I'm just gonna do this right now because I'm tired of thinking
about it. And I was laughing with my daughter in law about this
couple days ago because this is crazy.
But maybe not crazy deep, but it was crazy to me.
I went to her house so she had, she just had a baby.
So my son and daughter in law had a baby a week ago and I
went to their house and there was a blanket by the
(18:32):
front door that looked like a blanket that I almost bought
her for Christmas. And I thought, I don't think I bought
that for Christmas. And so my brain was just completely confused.
Like how would she know about that website or who got
that for her if I didn't? And it was a day of Christmas.
Early Black Friday deals before Black Friday.
But when everyone was trying to get you spend money before Black
(18:54):
Friday like a week before. And so it's like, oh, these sales,
I, I gotta, I gotta get it now before the sale goes
away, half off, you know. And I found this website that just
had the cutest little knickknacks and blankets and clothes and
things like that and kind of boho y but cute designs and
stuff. So then I started thinking, okay, who would I get these
(19:14):
for? My daughter in law, my daughter, my other daughter.
So I was thinking, oh, even for myself, should I get this?
So I keep putting in the cart and keep putting things in the
cart and imagining it being for that person.
But then, well, what if this doesn't fit?
I don't want to have to return it. And this isn't probably easy
to return. And maybe this is final sale, you know, and
then you start reading reviews. Does it fit bigger?
(19:36):
What if it's, you know, tighten the bust and you know, just went
on and on. Then I see these blankets and they are the cutest
blankets. So I go through and I read every
review for every blanket that's on sale and choose one for
each of them. But then I read one review that says, but
they're kind of thin. And I thought, so I took them all out of
the cart because the blankets were kind of expensive, even half
(19:59):
off. And I thought if you get them that that's their gift.
And so then I thought, well, maybe I'll get my daughter in law
maternity clothes instead. This has gone on for probably two
days. So I find this maternity website that
has these cute little stretchy overalls and they were half
off and they were pretty expensive to begin with.
But I thought these are better quality than the ones on Amazon.
(20:20):
These are better quality. I shouldn't say all this.
I don't. Amazon people come after me.
But, but they were, they were better quality.
And my, my daughter, one of my daughters here had bought the
Amazon ones and I tried them on and I didn't like them that much
on me, but they looked cute on her. But anyway, so I thought,
I'm gonna get those for her. Well, then I get two of them and
then it says if you get three, then you get each one for a lower
(20:40):
price. So I get three and I have to choose a
different color, you know, and then I, I get it to the cart and
it lets me get a fourth pair for 29.99 or something.
And they're, I don't know, it was all more than I wanted to
spend. But all the, I did that impulse thing, I
just thought, just buy it, just buy it, just buy it.
You've been trying to make decisions for days.
And so it was my first Christmas purchase of the year.
(21:05):
And I remember thinking that was a really good lesson in
how not to do it because I still ended up spending a
lot of money even though it was on sale.
But I didn't give it a lot of thought once
I got to the cart and thought how much money was in it.
Because part of what was going through my mind was, you're getting
four pair for the price of whatever.
(21:25):
And, but it was still, you know, like my friend's husband says,
you, you can, you know, you can make me go broke.
We could go broke on all the money you save.
So anyway, but, so when I see this
blanket at my son and Daughter in law's house.
I'm like, wait, why do you have this blanket?
Did I buy it? And forget that I bought it because that
(21:46):
wouldn't be unheard of either. And so I'm telling her about it
a couple of days ago because I think she was still at the hospital
when I. When I saw the blanket or something.
And we were. And she said, no, no, I saw it online and
put it on a wish list and my parents bought it for me.
But I said, you, you were this, like this big learning experience
(22:06):
with, with Christmas shopping. Because I made such an impulse
purchase. It ended up being good because think.
Because thankfully she liked them and because I think
the idea was like, I'll get a pair of these for myself.
And then I tried them on, it didn't look good on me.
And. And yeah, so she loved him. She wears them, she
wore them during her pregnancy, and she's wearing a
(22:27):
postpartum. So it ended up being a good purchase.
But
I just felt like I completely acted out of impulse.
And if you ever do that, like, I'm just gonna do this
now because I don't wanna think about it anymore.
Or if you're even just doing something like a craft or
you're sewing. I'm not good at sewing.
But if you're doing something like that and you don't have
(22:51):
the wherewithal to think of, like, how do I
do this? I'm gonna read the instructions.
I want to really understand it. And then you think, no, I'll
just do it. And then you mess it up.
I'd messed up way too many crafts because I think I'll just do
it my way and then it doesn't work out.
But you know, it's not like it ends, you know, leads to the
end of the world, but it can be stressful and you can
(23:14):
just get a lot of anxiety, frustration, waste money, waste time.
And
just knowing that there's a reason for that.
It's not because you. It's not because you
are not smart. It's not because you don't know how
(23:35):
to make decisions. It's just that your brain already lacks
the ability to function properly if you have this aspect
of adhd, of making decisions in a clear way,
or organizing instructions in a clear way, or prioritizing.
(23:56):
So you add those to a situation where there
might be somebody waiting for you or they're asking for your
credit card while you're trying to decide, do you want to sign
up for this thing? And you can just use your email or your.
You know you're like, what? Don't ask me questions.
You know, like, I'm trying to think right now.
You're trying to make me. And I know that's, you know, what they're
(24:18):
doing. But even, even the, on, on websites and stuff,
you know, you'll go to order something and then it will say,
do you want these five things too? Or you'll buy something.
You'll be so happy you finally bought something on a website.
And then it will say, do you want to sign up for this?
And you think, please stop asking me questions.
Please stop asking me questions. I thought I was done making
decisions. I can't do that anymore. So anytime you can simplify
(24:42):
and click a little X and stop making those decisions,
it can be helpful. It could be really helpful.
Even when I listen to podcasts, I would rather download the
podcasts and put them all in order. It depends on the app that
you use. Like, I think Apple podcasts is really easy to make
a playlist and have them in order. I tend to use Amazon Music
(25:03):
more now because it doesn't always show ads for a lot of
the podcasts I like and I, I get tired of the
ads, but
it's nice to not have to choose. I'd rather go and choose
a whole playlist of episodes to listen to and just let
them roll. And I, I don't mind, you know, every once in a
while I can, I can scroll past and ads, I just don't like the
(25:25):
ads if I'm using them to go. Go to sleep, which I do sometimes.
So anyway, so what are some strategies?
I probably mentioned some throughout, but anytime you can make
a decision in bulk, like, I'm going to plan
what I'm going to wear for the week now I just made a decision
in bulk on, on that episode with carried.
(25:47):
I don't know if you listened to it or watched it, but we were
talking about decision making and I was telling her that it's
gotten harder as a. You know, my ADHD has gotten worse.
Deciding on what earrings to make or to wear.
Not to make. I don't make earrings. Deciding which earrings to
wear or if I'm going to wear a necklace.
Sometimes I'll think, okay, I'll put this necklace on.
(26:08):
And then it doesn't work with the neckline of what
I'm wearing. And then I change my mind and then it's hard to
clasp it. And with the earrings, you know, what if
I can't find the back? And anyway, it's just, yeah, it's one
More thing to think about. And I don't want to make that decision.
I used to think it was fun. It was no problem long ago
to choose earrings, but now it is. So that was the strategy
(26:31):
I came up with while I was talking to her, was I'm just gonna
wear posts. The ones that, you know how some of them have.
I hope this isn't too loud with the microphone.
I'm touching my earring. But some of them have longer posts.
And then when you go to sleep, they touch your neck.
And then you can't sleep as well. These ones don't.
So I thought, I'll just wear normal posts for as long as
I can. And then maybe if I go out on the
(26:54):
weekend or go to church or something, I'll.
I'll wear something a little fancier, but streamlining what you
can. I teach yoga, so most of the time I'm wearing yoga clothes.
And when I do need to go somewhere else, like we went to
dinner last night, I'm like, I gotta think of something else
to put on. It's a lot easier when you can kind of
bulk do it in bulk, do it in batches, and even meals.
(27:17):
A lot of people like to do meal planning or just say Taco Tuesday
or my cousin used to have it all planned out.
Like when I was pasta. I used to. The most I did was
Friday nights was pizza. That was usually the only thing.
But anytime that you can make that decision in
advance makes your day a little easier.
Especially if you do it in advance and it takes
(27:41):
that time limit off. Because if I'm planning out my outfit the
night before, I feel no time pressure unless my husband's already
asleep and I'm thinking I should turn out the lights.
But most of the time I'm thinking, oh, what should I wear?
And I'm doing this in a very relaxed mind.
And it's not that hard. But if I wait until it's five
minutes to go run in there, grab something, it won't be as
(28:03):
easy. I'll be throwing things right and left.
My closet will get messy again. So it's not easy.
But so doing it before it's time is always a
good thing. That's one of my favorite, favorite strategies for
lots of things. You know, just even making your morning go better,
but even just minimizing what, what food
(28:24):
you have in your house. I don't know, I'm.
I'm not as good with that, but I do kind of eat the same
thing over and over and over. But I like to have Choices.
Same with my clothing. My husband's all about, if you have fewer
clothes, then you don't have as much laundry to do.
You don't have to make as many choices.
But I like to have choice. I like to have options, even though
I pretty much choose the same thing over and over.
(28:44):
You know when they say, go through your closet, anything you
haven't worn in a year or six months, I have things in there
I probably haven't worn for years that I won't get rid of them
because I want to have them as an option.
Maybe someday I will. But another thing you could do is
just talk to people. Talk to people and get their advice.
Like I said, in a restaurant, you can ask somebody else.
Have you eaten this before? What did you think?
(29:04):
Of course, people have different tastes, so that's not always
the best idea. But even deciding what to wear, I had a
roommate that would always come in, and she'd have one shoe,
one foot in each shoe, and she'd hold up one foot, like
behind, so you'd only see the one foot with the dress.
And she'd say, which one? Which one?
And it was. And at the time, we used to always think it was silly,
but it was actually a really good idea because we could look
(29:27):
and see. Now I do the opposite. I put on
a pair of shoes and go, no, I put on another pair of shoes.
But if you have somebody to ask. And I've even done that with
my daughter. My youngest daughter lives at home, and she's a
lot younger than I am. I was almost 35 when I had her.
But I do question my outfits sometimes because
(29:47):
I don't know fashion anymore. I teach yoga and.
And I buy what's comfortable. So I'll say, is this even, you
know, remotely in style? Yeah, mom, that's cute.
Okay, good. Or should I wear these boots or should I wear that?
She'll help me. So asking for help to help you
make the decision, and then. And if somebody gives you
(30:07):
an answer that you think, oh, maybe I shouldn't have done
that, don't second guess your gut if you feel good
about it. I just bought a birthday present for a daughter who
had a birthday yesterday, and I showed it to my husband, and
I said, do you think that she'll like this?
He goes, yeah, I think she'll really like it.
And I thought, I think so, too. And I asked my youngest daughter,
and she kind of went, eh. And I thought, well, I feel good about
(30:28):
it. And she loved it. She loved it. So I was glad but my, I
think my daughter just, you know, she just didn't know.
And sometimes people really have good insight and sometimes they
just help you weigh it out in your mind and then also using other
people, using other people, but asking other people, involving
other people, delegating to other people when you can,
when you can not having that weight, always be on yourself
(30:51):
to make the decisions or just taking yourself out of any
steps that you possibly can. I've been doing that lately and
this isn't as much with decisions, but my kids will ask me,
you know, do you think dad is able to do this?
And I'll say, yeah, I probably ask, text dad or ask
dad because they love to ask me first.
I think it's easier for them to ask me.
(31:13):
But yeah, take yourself out of anything that you can.
And even if it's simple things, you know, you
know, if it's, if it's causing more to your plate
and it's good for other people to be involved.
If you have even younger kids, they love to be involved.
So it might take a little more management on your part, but at
(31:33):
some point, you know, a little four year old with
a sponge, my grandson loves to be on the floor with
the sponge and cleaning it. Gets it cleaner than it would be
if I, if he didn't do it because I wouldn't be doing it.
So every, every little bit helps. But what else, what
else, what else? Even just
(31:55):
making a decision like, like I'll just, I'll just go with
my first choice or I'll only allow myself this amount of time
to, to decide. You can make little rules like that,
you know, I'm going to set a buzzer and in five minutes I just
got to decide. And that's what people do in game shows.
Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't, but they don't spend
all day doing it. So anyway, anyway, I think that's
(32:18):
probably it for now. I don't even know.
It's funny because this new way of recording.
Oh, it does tell me how long I've been recording.
When I was just doing audio, I could see it
the whole time and I'd stop, you know, if I wanted to and
get a drink of water or something. And now that I'm doing video
(32:40):
too, if you're on YouTube. Hello, thanks for watching.
I waited till afternoon to record today, so it's a little
darker in here, but. And I got highlights if
you can't tell. It was a brave thing for me because I'm,
I think I've done it once which was a bad decision.
I decided to do it myself and it was not good.
(33:00):
I don't have any experience with coloring like that.
And so I went to a beauty. So what's
it called? Beauty school. And asked because I heard that they
did it a lot cheaper because I just didn't have the money to
pay for someone to do highlights. And they did fix it, but
it took. Took something like three hours.
It's really long because it was somebody new.
(33:22):
Hopefully they're not frying my hair, but it was fine.
But this is, I don't know, this new strategy I have and
we'll see how it goes. Trying to be brave, I made a
decision and I'm sticking with it. Right.
Even that with haircuts. Do you do that with haircuts?
Are you, are you somebody who's consistent with
(33:43):
their decisions? Because that would be easier if I decided every
six weeks, every two months, I'm going to go in and get my
hair cut or I'm going to go in and do this.
I wouldn't have to think about it. I could just schedule it
and do it. But I've been more like, no, I don't
need to cut my hair because I just pull it back.
(34:03):
And then nine months later, a year later, three months
later, whatever it is, it never has a pattern.
I think I want to get my hair cut, but it has to be today, which
is so dumb. But it's that impulse. It's like I want
to get it out of my system, I want to do it now.
I don't want to think about it. But yeah, I don't know,
you might have personal tips you can share with me because clearly
(34:25):
decision making, I don't know, it can be hard.
At the same time, I have to give some kudos to women
with adhd because if you have ADHD and you
are creative minded, you're smart, you are resourceful,
often the ideas that we have and the hyper focusability,
(34:50):
the curiosity, that's a great combination for being super
resourceful. I don't know if anybody's ever said to you, you're
so resourceful, like how do you, how do you find out all
these things? How do you do this? You're able to make
good decisions, you're able to gather good information because
you like to research and you like to find it out.
(35:11):
And a lot of people don't know where to look for that information.
So that can be really wonderful and powerful too.
So, yeah, I think that'll be it for today.
I'm teaching Another class in an hour.
Yoga, yoga, yoga, if you're one. I actually have a different
website for. I don't know. I'm redoing my website right
now. I know I keep saying I'm going in, I'm not.
(35:31):
But I have another website for yoga, and this
is another decision. I decided to save money and transfer my
website and transfer my yoga library.
And I was learning how to do it and I was doing a good
job, but I'm finding that on YouTube, it's uploading them
at bad quality. And these are HD videos.
(35:56):
I took great care to record them in high def and
they're recording blurry. They're uploading blurry to YouTube.
I still have all the files on the other thing, but the other
subscription expires. If I don't renew it, it'll expire in
six days. So that's why I thought, stop
trying to figure this out. Just go record your podcast.
(36:21):
You know, even just setting up my new website, I
keep making it more complicated than I need to.
I keep second guessing I need to just say, these are going
to be your colors. Set it up, put it up so
people can find things if they need to.
And then later, if you want to change
(36:42):
a color, you can. But right now I'm just like, which pink?
But this pink looks good with that. I think I have about,
I don't know, 12 different pinks in my little Google Doc
right now. But I hope you're doing well.
I love knowing that you're out there.
I know that it's not simple going through life
(37:03):
with adhd. It's also. It's also a
great adventure. I think if, if, especially once you find out
that your brain works in a unique way and that there
are a lot, a lot of people who experience that too.
And it's. It's really fun to compare to strategize, because
(37:29):
we're not all the same in our adhd, but we do share so
many, so many traits and so many struggles.
And it's good to bond together and just know
that we can support each other and give each other
ideas because we've all got them. I'm not the only one with the
ideas, but thank you so much for being here.
(37:50):
I think this will be it for real. This is my
for real goodbye. So thanks so much for being here.
Bye.
I butter my toast, spread on some grape
(38:11):
jelly. I don't mean to fuss, but
I'm a chef and a good wine. My grandma
can't hear me now Breakfast is done.
Getting colder ever older so I run
(38:34):
Open windows broken shadow
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
(39:07):
Rewind I run out of time to sing
Melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com