But what does that mean?

So I discovered this through ADHD coaching.

I had a really talented woman, Dusty Shapura, who was helping me out and I was getting so frustrated because I would try a technique or a strategy to get more stuff done and it would work for a little bit and then it would fall off and it would work for a little bit and it would fall off and I was so tired of just feeling so disappointed in myself all the time.

feeling like a failure, feeling like nothing I ever did was good enough, was going to stay.

I'm putting all this effort in and I end up just right where I started from, feeling like my life is so disorganized.

And she said to me one day, she goes, what if your system is that you have a hundred systems? That is a system.

It's not the same system as what anybody else is trying to sell you, right? But it's the reality of your situation.

What do you do about executive dysfunction? Is that the anti-planner? Is that you, you, you embrace the randomness and you embrace the unpredictability and just do, do different things like kind of trick yourself into keep moving?

Mm

hmm.

Uh, so I started with something that I've called now with my husband, um, like checkpoint walks.

So this was like, how do I get the, I'm jumping straight from, I want to get my butt from the house to the gym and in the pool, right.

Is a big jump from not having been doing anything.

And so it started with, um, Hey, my husband and I ask each other, do you want to walk to the stop sign? Which is about like a two and a half minute walk from our house.

unless the other person is like in a meeting or has some previously scheduled thing, like we pretty much have to go.

How does obsessiveness show up in your life with ADHD?

So let's start with why do you think there was so much demand for the anti-planner in the beginning?

So the anti-planner to me, again, feels like it fills a space that was previously unoccupied that should have been occupied, which is that people who struggle most with productivity, people with ADHD, do not have tools that are like specifically designed around how their brain works.

There are ADHD planners, but they are essentially regular planners that require consistency.

They require you using them every day.

Their core are not like inventions, I guess, in that they are just putting a slightly different spin on an existing genre of product, which is planners.

And there are different kinds of like gamified apps and stuff like that, but it, everything sort of loses its luster.

There is no one, you know, silver bullet for anybody, let alone people with ADHD who are starting things and trying things and constantly trying to get our shit together.

it i can't claim it

Like, how did you wind up learning so deeply about ADHD and creating The Anti-Planner?

So I have a story that I think un- unfortunately, it sounds like a lot of, of especially younger women who got missed and found out, like, later in their life that they had ADHD, although I was not inattentive type.

So when I was growing up, I was, like, the, the chatty cat, like quote-unquote chatty Cathy stereotype of using a lot of st- you know, I need a lot of stimulation from, from talking a lot.

I was, like, distracting ... others, 'cause I kept finishing my work too fast.

And so my mom asked my third-grade teacher and my fifth-grade teacher, "Do you think Dani could have ADHD?" And one of them said, "She can't have ADHD, she's too smart." And one of them said, uh, "Well, she's doing fine in school, so..." And, and so both of them really were like, "You shouldn't go seek treatment because she appears to be performing well in school." Like, not considering any of the social aspects, which is where things were really, like, starting to show up.

So I, and I didn't know that until, like, I started making ADHD content, so that's, like, new to my origin story, uh, was finding out that my mom actually did suspect it a long time ago, but she asked teachers who were misinformed about, about the condition.

And when I went to college, I was a freshman in college, and I was in a new, new city, um, lost my friend group.

But just give us a few examples of what kinds of things might help.

[upbeat music] Dani, for listeners who don't know you yet, although in the ADHD world they would have to be under some kinda rock, give us the short version of what is The Anti-Planner and what made you decide, "You know, I think the world needs one more productivity tool, except, you know, not like the others"?

A little bit.

So I, I got started making, you know, ADHD comics, and had one kind of take off unexpectedly.

And so being around my, like, ADHD audience and peers and, and posting and seeing what really resonated with people and what sort of topics, uh, we were all really drawn to and, and gleaning some information out of that, that so many of us don't just struggle with getting distracted, but we struggle with perfectionism, and, like, waiting to feel like it, and how difficult things can be when you don't have external accountability or, or how discouraging it can feel when you start something and ex- you know, are excited about it but you can't finish it.

And so there's all of these, like, emotions that I realized were kind of at the core of why I was procrastinating, because I am the person who has bought so many planners, so, you know, many productivity tools and systems and online classes and, and self-help books, and the whole shebang, and I don't stick with any of them.

And they...

That always made me feel like such a failure.

Yeah

[laughs]

Like, it's so hard, and I now have to go and open a business bank account, and I have to go do all this, like, dumb stuff that I don't wanna do.

And I wasn't managing my time very well, and so I thought to myself, "Well, I'll make, like, an ADHD-friendly planner.

What does that look like? Uh, oh, it'll be, like, kind of like a b- b- bullet journal, kind of like this, you know, and, and it'll have funny lettering and..." And so I was working on it, and in the meantime, my business coach had told me to keep, like, a field guide, uh, of my, for my business, essentially, like, documenting out, like, things that, realizations I'm having, things that I'm learning, uh, journaling kind of, like, activities.

And I, I made a thing called my excuse list where I would write out...

Like, I, I had a little X and I would put, um, "I don't have the time," and then the check mark, you know, next to it that would be like, "I'm choosing to not make time." And it would be like, "I don't know how," and it's like, "I am a capable adult who knows how to Google things," you know? And, like, I, I would put pretty much all of the reasons why I wasn't working on my comics into this list.

And then I started making, like, theme weeks where I said, "Okay, well, this is gonna be finance week," and I'd make this cute, cute, like, pretty illustrated header, and I would say, "I'm gonna do 10 things this week related to finance.

How did you come up with those five categories?

Like, what does that shift look like practically?

So it was really interesting because I had a plan, and then my plan got, like, so disrupted so quickly.

[laughs] Um, in, in, in a shocking, in a shocking turn of events, things did not turn out as I thought they were going to.

And so I had decided to quit my job at Ga- Gallup, which was really difficult for me because I genuinely, like, really liked working there and liked my coworkers a lot.

And, and I ended up doing it because I started getting so many speaking engagements that I was, like, taking time away from work, and it's like you can only... there's a limit to how many of those you can do and have a full-time job, right? And so being able to make that space for like, okay, there's something that I want to have more of in my life, and I'm currently, like, not able to get it because of, you know, these circumstances.

And I had enough money from Patreon to pay my bills.

I finally, finally did the math on like, okay, I'm gonna stop avoiding finances for long enough to, like, figure out how much my monthly, you know, thing is, and being able to look at that.

Did you have a mentor? Like how were you figuring this stuff out?

And that really does send a message to your brain that there are other productive things to do.

I think that one of the biggest things that the anti-planner does for a lot of people is help them to...

Same thing with my comics, where it's like, I want to understand myself better.

Like, who does not like understanding themselves better? And why do I keep doing this thing that I don't want to be doing? And so for the anti-planner, it's got 16 different subsections to be able to help people identify what is causing their procrastination.

Because each of the sections has little bullets that say, I...

Like intimidated might say like, I've got so much to do or this is gonna take so long or I don't know, I don't have everything I need and all of these sort of like statements that you read and if you relate to it, that's the section that you might need to go and check out.

So there's a lot of people who have a hard time knowing what they're feeling in the first place.

Tell me a little bit about what your perspective is on people setting expectations for themselves.

horrible.

Yeah.

Well, when I was in school, it was like I made my own, I made much more of my own hours, but it was, it was really difficult because getting up early was really a struggle for me.

So graphic design positions later on, my last job before I transitioned into, you know, working for myself full time, I worked as a graphic designer at Gallup, which I loved because I got to...

The whole company? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And they did CliftonStrengths too.

But can you talk more about that? Why you made that decision?