Rest and Avoiding Burnout with ADHD: Unleash Your Efficiency

Sure, here's the transcript of the podcast as a single paragraph without altering the words:

Hey friends, welcome back to the Outsmart ADHD podcast. I am yet again in a new surrounding, can you tell? Last week I was with my friend Lauren. Shout out to Lauren who's right next to me right now, and I'm with her again today. But we are in this super fun resort up in the mountains in Colorado and I am living my best bougie life in her mom's condo with her. So we're having a great time over here and that's why I'm in yet another place. If you're watching this on YouTube, one of these days I will get the videos on YouTube. But guess what? I have ADHD. So I'm not sure when that's going to happen guys. It'll be sometime in the near ish future, which is sometime between now and ten years from now. Okay? So let's talk about the topic for today. You're not lazy, you're efficient. And what the fuck do I mean by that? So let's think about a typical work week in corporate America. EW Gag. Nine to five jobs, 40 days. 40 days? 40 hours a week. We're expected to be pretty much slow and steady for 40 hours a week. Okay, let's break that down into why that doesn't work very well for ADHD humans. Ready for this? So ADHD humans, we very much work like a race car. We go really fast, we go all the way around the track, and then we stop and we run out of gas. Now take so that's the ADHD car. Okay, so we're talking in metaphors right now. Now, a neurotypical car would be a let's call it a little what is slow and steady? It's an impala. Okay, so your neurotypical car is an Impala and it goes slow and steady around the track until it comes to a stop. So the ADHD brain works very much in hyper focus, work very fast, and then needs a lot of rest after. Whereas a neurotypical person can work slow and steady. And since they worked slower, they drain their energy slower, they don't need as much time to recover. Okay, so this is a problem when it comes to trying to fit an ADHD person in a neurotypical box. A lot of times you'll find that those of us who are in corporate jobs or work a nine to five job work for some other overpaid tool, that we can get all of our work tasks done for the day within like 2 hours, maybe an hour, maybe 2 hours if you're new to the job, maybe four. Because we learn so fast and we pick up on things so fast and we're incredibly efficient. Now the problem comes in where we expect ourselves to be actively busy as long as a neurotypical person. Now, the thing is that we can get five days worth of tasks done in one day. That does not mean that we should be working the other four days of the week. That means that all of our executive functioning, all of our thinking power, all of our decision making, it's done just like a neurotypical person's would be done by maybe the end of the workday. Friday, Thursday, Friday. As ADHD people, we are not giving ourselves enough time to rest after that hyper focus. So that often leads to burnout. Cue a situation I'm sure you have never been here. Sarcasm intended. It's a Tuesday and you wake up and you put a couple of things on your list because you took my advice of only putting two things on your list to get started. And then you found out really quickly that that method works really well because you got started. You not only did those two things, but you did seven more things. You knocked out not only everything you had to do this week, but a couple of things for next week. Now it's 04:00 P.m. On a Tuesday and you got all those things done, so you take the rest of the day to rest. And then Wednesday you wake up and you put another seven things on your list because you know what? You were so productive yesterday, you should probably be just as productive today. Because if you look around at neurotypical people, the boring normies, they're still working today. But guess what? You are comparing your seven days of work that you completed in one day to their one day of work that they completed. You're not giving yourself the time that you need to rest, and you're already overwhelmed. Chronically overwhelmed. Another way I want you to think about this is if you have two bottles of water and they are both filled. There's an ADHD bottle of water and there's a neurotypical bottle of water. The ADHD bottle of water pours the entire thing out within two minutes. The neurotypical bottle of water pours out slowly throughout the entire day. They're both empty. One is empty sooner, one is empty later. But they both need at least a full day to rest. And the ADHD bottle is going to need even more time to rest because the quicker you expel that energy, the longer it's going to take for you to recoup the energy. Does that make sense? The faster and more efficient that you use your brain, the more things that you're getting done in a short time, the longer it's going to take for your brain and your body to recover because we are working exponentially faster and more efficiently than neurotypical people. So when you are sitting at your job on a Wednesday and you have gotten everything done and you're feeling like you're slacking because you look around and everyone else is still working. What's happening is that you're desperately needing rest and the people around you are not working as efficiently as you are. And in that case, I hope that you're working a remote job and you can buy a mouse jiggler to put into your computer and make it look like you're actually online on teams. But if you're not, then I hope that you're finding a way to stay away from your boss and get some rest. But the main thing is not to feel the guilt. We have this adorable little dog, Sophie, with us because of course, we're not going to leave her at home. She had to come to the condo, too. She's adorable. So that's who you just heard right now. She's so cute. Yes, Sophie, I'm talking about you. You're adorable. Where was I at? Turns out I have ADHD. But no, you need all of that time to rest. Make sure that you're trying to stay away from your boss because take away the guilt, you need a lot more time to rest because you're way more efficient. Okay? Another way to think about it is if you have a car and you run it really fast and really hard and you come back into your driveway and it's on empty, what's the first thing that you're going to do? Well, what you're going to do is you should probably put some gas in the car, right? You're not going to take that same car and then go run it really fast. You're going to need to fill that thing back up with gas. So this is why those of us that have ADHD, which I'm going to assume is probably you, really struggle in nine to five jobs because we work mad efficiently. And then our overpaid tool of a boss expects us to continue working Monday through Friday, when really we got everything done by Monday. And we're probably even more efficient than our neurotypical counterparts. And really we should be spending the rest of the week watching Netflix and hanging out and eating ice cream. Does anyone else also love watching Netflix and eating ice cream? Pair those two things together, it's like my favorite pastime in the entire world. So take away for today. Stop feeling so fucking guilty about resting when you have been incredibly efficient, okay? Just because the people around you are still working through Friday EW, by the way, doesn't mean that you need to be because you're mad efficient. Anyway, takeaways quit feeling so guilty about taking the rest that you need and take the rest that you need so that you don't get burnt out. And if you're already feeling like you're burnt out, then go back and listen to the episodes about Burnout. There are a few episodes back, so just search Burnout here and you'll get some good episodes. Okay, my friends, I hope that you have the best time resting. If you are not already part of our Facebook group, come and join us. It is 100% free. It's for women with ADHD, and there'll be a link for it in the show notes. Okay, my friends. And also a big shout out to our friend Jess, who also just joined us in the Get Shit Done membership. I appreciate you, Jess. This podcast is possible because of listeners like you. Members like you appreciate you so much. Did I sound like the PBS commercial that we all listened to as the kids? This is possible because of viewers like you. Anyway, you guys are amazing. And if you have not checked out the Get Shit Done membership, I'm not sure what you're doing with your life other than working really hard. Just kidding. But a link for that will be in the show notes. It's free to try. Why are you having tried it yet? It's literally $9 a month after the seven day trial, and you can cancel at any time. And you don't have to talk to anyone to cancel it. It's a button. Okay, my friends. Okay, I can't wait to talk to you next time. We'll see where I'm at at that moment. Bye.