Introduction

HI, I'M NIKKI Kinzer.

I am a certified ADHD coach, podcaster, writer, teacher, and business owner, and I have dedicated my life's work to working with adults with ADHD, and I love it. I'm a daughter, sister, aunt, wife, mother, and friend. I love puzzles and red barns. My favorite number is 10, and I love chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

In 2008, I started an organizing business and became a professional organizer. I asked Pete if he could help me with my website, and he agreed, and we've been working together since. Two years later, I changed the direction of my business to focus only on ADHD. Together, we provide a unique perspective on common ADHD struggles.

Our partnership is unique. Pete comes from the perspective of living with ADHD, and I come from the perspective of an ADHD coach. I do not have ADHD; my personal experience comes from working with hundreds of clients over the last 15-plus years, and I am a mother to a daughter with ADHD.

This book is written in a style similar to our podcast. I share what I've learned over many years about planning with ADHD. Pete is a great storyteller and often uses metaphors in his descriptions when sharing his own knowledge and experience with ADHD.

Our mission for the podcast has always been to raise awareness of ADHD and inspire those who listen. That is our same mission here. We hope you walk away with a planning system, but more than anything, we hope you stop feeling the need to apologize for your ADHD. Give yourself permission to design the life you want to live.

You are enough. You are worthy. You are unapologetically ADHD.

Hi, I'm Pete Wright

I'm a podcaster, business owner, writer, designer, photographer, and constant cohabitator with ADHD and anxiety. That makes for a complicated bouquet of competing sensory experiences that anyone staking out their homestead in the wilds of the neurodiversity spectrum might find familiar. At least, that's my hope. Yikes. It also reads just like a career someone with ADHD might cobble together.

When Nikki and I started our show, Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast, in 2010, it wasn't an ADHD podcast. It was an organizing podcast with attention issues. But Nikki was an organizing coach back then, and I was a humble podcaster with a fondness for office supplies. A little while into our production, we discovered two things. First, Nikki loved working with people with ADHD the most. Second, I got to surprise her with my very own adult ADHD diagnosis, and as if delivered from high up on the mountaintop, we realized that it was time to stop pretending we loved organizing alone and start talking directly to the people we loved the most.

In this book, we hope you're going to find the same healthy mix of worldviews that you get from us on the podcast. But don't worry; you don't need to have heard a single episode of the show to get something out of what we're doing in this book. Nikki has spent years working with ADHDers, crafting a practice of planning and organizing that is free of judgment and shame that not only works for the ADHD brain but is resilient to the challenges that ADHD throws at it. For my part, I'd like to give you a tour of how I think and feel when faced with these sorts of systems and how I celebrate when I am able to stare down the grizzliest of my ADHD challenges. Or hide from them. Like, under my bed. Because who are we kidding? That's ADHD, too.

Before we get going, here are a few quick notes. First, I don't know who you are out there reading this, so I have decided to call you Jordan. If you read that I am talking about Jordan, it's because I'm talking to you.

Second, you might be asking, “Pete, how will I know when you're writing and when Nikki is teaching me the important stuff?” Great question, Jordan (see that? I'm already doing it). You'll know something is coming from me when it shows up in a box, just like the one you're reading right now. The Pete Box. When you see it, you know you're in for a little break between concepts, and you can give yourself a chance to slow down and just relate for a few pages.

Finally, I want to say thank you, Jordan. Opening another book on planning (because there's always another book on planning) when you're living with even a dash of the ADHD spice is a massive accomplishment. Thank you for showing up, thank you for joining us, and thank you for believing that what we have to share is different. This work has made a difference in our lives and might just make a difference in your life, too.

What Is the Framework?

One reason many people with ADHD go through several calendars, planners, and task managers is that the tools aren't seen as one complete planning system with interconnected components. Instead, they are being used as stand-alone pieces, and there hasn't been a clear workflow established for how these systems work together.

A complete planning system is like a well-oiled machine: each component works in harmony with the others to manage your time and keep track of your tasks.

The framework we provide is based on weekly and daily planning. The mission is to build and customize your own system. The system includes planning tools like a calendar and task manager and the actions needed to maintain the tools.

The planning system supports your ADHD and is resilient enough not to break when things don't go as planned. (Spoiler alert: plans rarely go as planned.) But that's OK because your system is flexible. You expect plans to change because, in this process, you have learned to reframe your approach to planning.

Below is a summary of how the book is organized and what to expect in each chapter.

How to Read This Book

When you build a house, you start with laying the foundation. Once the foundation is set, it's time to frame the structure. Then you need to enclose the structure and add any additional touches. The final step is to decorate the house and make it your home. You can't make it your home until the previous steps are completed.

Building and customizing your planning system is like building a house. Working through each of the steps is what separates a complete planning system from a few random planning tools.

Each chapter builds upon the previous chapter. Read through it once from start to finish to ensure you have a handle on the concepts. After that, have at it. You're free to jump around as you please.

The intention of this book is not to be a passive read; it's a book where, at the end of each chapter, exercises will be designed to prepare you for the next chapter. Take your time and be prepared to answer several questions through various worksheets. You will be asked to go deeper in your thought process than you might do on your own. We do this inner work by being curious and reframing our approach to planning.

Pete and I have developed a soft way of talking about planning. What I mean is that it takes away the expectations, standards, and negative stigma that many with ADHD feel when they think about planning anything. We have a framework to teach; it's not perfect, and you will still have ADHD when it's built. However, you will no longer have to be anyone else than who you are.

Glossary of Terms

To keep planning interesting and not something that you want to run away from every time you see the word, we created a new glossary of terms:

• Workbox: This is the central hub where your work is organized and tracked. It includes your primary calendar, task manager, and other planning tools.
• Inbox: This is the temporary holding space for new information before entering it into your workbox.
• Workflow: These are the action steps involved in updating and maintaining your workbox and overall planning system. Workflows are similar to routines.
• Weekly Focus: Your planning workflow to maintain your workbox is conducted during the weekly focus session.
• Daily Detour: A daily check-in is performed to preview the day ahead and make necessary adjustments.

Following is a quick rundown of what you have to look forward to as you read on.

Part 1: The Planning Foundation

Chapter 1: Your Relationship with ADHD We begin by learning more about your relationship with ADHD, specifically your mindset around planning. We cover what acceptance looks like, how it can help you become a more confident planner, how limiting beliefs can derail your efforts, and how to challenge them when they arise. You will see how perfectionism sabotages your plans and how to break away from unrealistic standards.

Chapter 2: The ADHD Maze We explain why planning is much more complex than people realize. We define ADHD and executive functions and talk about which functions challenge planning. Planning with ADHD requires a different set of guidelines to plan more confidently and be flexible enough to adjust when needed.

Chapter 3: The ADHD Time Zone One of the biggest factors in planning is how ADHD perceives time. Too many people expect themselves to see it the same way as neurotypical brains and do not account for it in their planning, which makes planning very difficult to want to keep doing when the plans are always wrong. We outline time...