#68👍 Preventing ADHD Overwhelm and Exhaustion by Guarding "Yes"

How to guard "yes" with your life to break your cycle of failure.

Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog for navigating the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.

I am a coach specializing in ADHD and product management, and I help you change one belief and take one action each week.

Part 11 of the Performance and Productivity series.

🐼Are you an overwhelmed tech worker with ADHD? Get help now.

🦋The Takeaways

Belief: I can do it all and if I can’t, it’s because of my unworthiness.

Reality: ADHD causes you to overcommit things and sets you up for failure.

Action: Guard "yes" with your life.

⭐️Introduction

One of the biggest ways I get in trouble is by saying "yes" to everything and everyone around me. Here are a few examples of how I've said “yes” in the last week:

Do you need some interview help? I'm there.

Do you need your oversized furniture moved to the curb? I'm there.

Need ADHD help because you're a war refugee living in another country and questioning if ADHD has ruined your future? I'm there.

I love to say yes to people, but it gets me in trouble if I do it too much. That's where I am today.

I'm sick from an infection most closely associated with exhaustion and overwork. This isn't the first time and probably not the last.

Don't be like me; learn to guard "yes" with your life.

I should be in bed right now.

😵‍💫The Belief – I can do it all and if I can’t, it’s because I suck

My flavor of ADHD makes me someone who works until they get ill but still believes I'm not working hard enough.

It happened again this week. After 2 continuous weeks of travel that consisted of 3 7 am flights in a week, my body was broken. Between sleep deprivation, 11-hour workdays, increased alcohol consumption, moving furniture, coaching, and juggling a constipated child, I hit my limit.

What started as pain on Saturday led me to have to go to a surgeon yesterday for a minor procedure to deal with an infection. This is my 3rd time on antibiotics this year—a new lifetime high.

My therapist, psychiatrist, and my wife say I've been doing too much. I need to rest.

I need to stop saying yes to things.

I hear and acknowledge that. Yet I still believe I'm not doing enough. That I'm lazy, behind, and underperforming.

I couldn't even say no to writing a newsletter today despite being 24 hours out of a medical procedure. What the heck is wrong with me?

It took 6 people and 3 furniture dollies to move this outside. It’s 82 inches long. You’re welcome, Mom.

🤝The Reality – It’s easy to overcommit when you have ADHD

Part of why I keep saying yes and believing I'm lazy is because of my ADHD. This happens in two ways: emotional dysregulation and an impaired sense of how much time and effort things will take.

ADHD emotional dysregulation drives me to avoid letting people down (aka perfectionism and rejection sensitivity dysphoria) but is underpinned by a lack of self-worth.

When something needs to be done for my co-workers or family, I take it on myself, even if I don’t have the capacity.

I take it all on because, in my mind, by doing the work, I'm adding value to their lives. I need to add value to their lives because I view my existence as a burden on them.

I do it to make up for the work they do to put up with me.

If I keep working and doing stuff for them, they'll keep me in their life. They'll continue to overlook the cost they incur of having me in their life.

I know reality doesn’t align with my image of self-worth but I still struggle with it.

Couple that belief with ADHD's hindrance to time blindness and effort estimation, and you have a recipe for someone who says yes to too much. Which sets me up for failure and perpetuates the belief that I'm not good at anything.

🛠️The Action – Guard “Yes” with your life

If you’re a product manager in tech, saying no is a part of the job. There are lots of frameworks to prioritize features and roadmaps. However, you need a framework to say no for yourself.

For that, you can look to René Brooks, an ADHD coach and writer. She’s one of the few black women in the space. I heard her advice on the Ologies Podcast Episode for ADHD. It’s one of my favorite podcasts that describes the basics of ADHD.

Below is an edited excerpt from her blog post on the topic. I’ve edited her tips into one-liners to encourage you to check out her post.

“Simple Tips to “Guard Your Yes” by René Brooks

1. Know what your limits are – By limits I mean all of the costs that it will take to say yes to whatever you’re being asked.

2. Create a pause – Before you say yes to ANYTHING, create a pause.

3. Watch the reaction – When I started to guard my yes, one of the things I noticed most was how people reacted.

4. Get comfortable with the discomfort – Telling people no doesn’t bother me like it used to, but in the beginning? I’d nearly have a panic attack sometimes.”

Guarding yes can be hard. However, the discomfort that you feel saying “no” is going to be far less than the discomfort you feel from failure or burnout.

✨Conclusion

Guarding "yes" with your life is a necessity to survive in the tech industry. You're almost always going to have more work than you have time.

Having ADHD means you're prone to say yes too much and cause you to overextend yourself. By becoming self-aware of your needs and learning to say no, you can avoid burnout and overwhelming situations.

I'm doing that for myself right now by choosing to stop working and going back to sleep. Was this the best issue I've written? Probably not. I chose to show up because it was important to me. However, I’ve reached my limit for the day.

It was a good reminder, though, that I need to take my own advice sometimes and say “yes” to more rest. And more “no” to belief I'm not good enough for my friends and family.

I'll see you next week, more rested and hopefully more healed.

I also learned that my mom has replaced me with a lost rooster that lives in our yard. It goes away to sleep somewhere at night but I don’t know where.

🐼Work with a PM with ADHD to create your productivity strategy

⏭️Next Week

How to overcome procrastination and task avoidance by 1% better.