18: Being Productive with ADD or as a Creative

Being productive when you are a creative, ideas person who has a tendency for chaos.

Now this is a subject that’s very close to my heart because it’s something I’ve struggled with for years. And for the last two years or so I feel I’ve more or less hit my stride with being productive and getting stuff done and not getting caught up in beating myself up constantly.

I do have ADD. It’s not severe enough to need medication, but I’ve definitely had to really find my own way, in finding my own structure and productivity techniques I could actually get something done. That being said, this is not an episode about ADD. It’s about a creative, ideas person.

First of all, when we’re looking at adding structure as a creative, ideas person to make you more productive, don’t be afraid to stop technique and go try something else. Test it, tweak it, try again is the name of the game here. Different techniques will work for different sorts of people, so it’s really up to you to go test these out and keep track. One great starting point is Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Test that describes how you respond to expectations.

When I started my own business, I thought like the “normal” thing to do is that you have like a micro schedule and you have your week planned out. Like every 30 minutes you’re doing a task. And I tried this multiple times and it was incredibly frustrating because I’m a natural want-to-be-overachiever and I always tend to overestimate how quickly I can do things and underestimate how long things will take.
So, here I have a couple options for you on scheduling yourself for the week and in general, how do you plan your time? My big recommendation is test it, tweak it, try again. Play around with these different options and really figure out what suits you best.

Time blocking (batching).

So, instead of saying I’m going to spend 20 minutes doing task A and then 20 minutes doing task B, I say – I’m going to spend my entire morning doing task A. For example, instead of me recording one podcast episode every single week, I sit down once a month and I record 4 and I’m done for the month.

2. Assign days.

I have here is having certain days for certain tasks. For example, Monday is content creation day, Tuesday’s client call day, Wednesday is networking day, and so on.

3. A/B Weeks.

The idea here is that in A week, I would for example take all of my client calls, all of my appointments, that’s when I’m on video and doing all the conversations. And on B week I get to be creative and I can dive into projects and so on. I have to say, this is one of the best things I’ve done for my productivity and my business.

Now go out there and do all the things and be super productive and get it all done. Although, don’t expect hundred percent productivity from yourself when there’s a global pandemic happening. So, take it easy.

If you want some help growing or scaling your service-based business, make sure you book a call with me and lets have a conversation!

Love + magic,

Maggie