[Edit I recently posted this in another forum about using Google Calendar / Tasks, Bill asked me to post here, hope you find some useful strategies to deal with those appointments and tasks that just seem to whoosh by] Back in the day I was a programmer. I was all about 'doing' tasks / bug fixing and avoided meetings like the plague. Meetings just got in the way of the tasks assigned to me. Back then I was a 'Maker'. Today I'm more of a 'Manager', I have to manage a team to move the company forward. But as a small business owner I kind of have one foot in both sides. This is something I've struggled a bit when using the Calendar. In addition I also have a separate Calendar to track Projects inside our Project Management Tool. This goes against the 'everything in one place' concept that Ali teaches. The Team mostly uses the PM Tool but there is stuff assigned to me on the PM Calendar and some of this has been falling through the cracks since I've been hanging out more in Google Calendar / Tasks. Interested to hear if anyone else struggles with this? Below is how I am currently dealing with wearing the two hats. - I integrated our PMTool with the Google Calendar / Tasks so I everything is now in one place. - I blocked out Mondays and Wed + Thur 7-11 am for Doing Tasks. No meetings can be booked in these slots. And for the 7-11am sessions and I have my phone off and 'focus mode' on. - I only have one team meeting a week. And one development meeting and make sure I have a clear agenda before the meeting. I put bullet points in the Google Meeting notes. - When I'm in Task mode I hit the Focus button my Chromebook, I can then select the task I'm working on and set the 'do not disturb' time, so no notifications / tasks pop up to distract me. - I also use focus mode during meetings, to stop all the message pop ups. - The team also now have visibly of my calendar so they know when I'm free. Most have been with me for 8 years, no secrets.. - I use Events to 'time block' similar tasks. e.g. Tax, but then drag in the related tasks to do in that block. Often I end up dragging these over, but at least they don't get lost. - Every month I still go old school and divide up an A4 sheet of paper with the 8 core parts of the business and place the priorities in side those boxes. It's a mix of Company / Product / Client focused stuff. I like to have main 'goals / needle movers' all on one page, which just sits on my desk so I can glance at it. The process of writing it out really makes me think about what's important and keeps me on track.

Found this video in my archive on Youtube from 2023. I'm ashamed of the quality but I laughed 5 times when watching it and thought, let's just share.

When I was fIrst diagnosed with Adhd, I was heavy into burnout and saw no way forward but I knew one thing: I was desperate for relief and didn't know what to do. So I turned to one more psychiatrist. An emergency care providor at that, and FINALLY SOMEONE SAW WHAT NO ONE ELSE HAD YET! And I finally had an answer of where to dig deep. At 32, I learned I am Autusitic with Combined Type Adhd. I spents hours a day for weeks taking in everything I could. I was familiar with inatentive ADHD in children thanks to my daughter but I had no idea how many different ways there were that ADHD could show up in different people or that there was even a third type...the combined type. I didnt know that Hyperactive ADHD shows up differently in women than it does in men or that most women have the inattentive type and that women with any type struggle for years with improper diagnoses. Cue me giving the middle finger to every mis-informed psych that told me I was bipolar, unreliable, neurotic, had borderline personality disorder, OCD, GAD, SAD, or MDD. The end result of all this research? A huge influx of self worth for 1, but also a field guide for anyone else who may be navigating similar terrain. A field guide to help the ADHD person of any type to process through burnout and start working WITH their brain rather than against it. And now, that field guide is yours.

My musical shall include this song When you build a system with Jenga... it can't work like legos

I was reminded of this very personally a couple of days ago. I had a stressful call with my sister - and even though the call itself ended, my body didn’t move on as quickly. I was so dysregulated afterward that I ended up essentially bed-ridden for a couple of days. Not lazy. Not unmotivated. Just… offline.. And that’s the thing we often miss, especially as entrepreneurs. When our nervous system takes a hit, productivity doesn’t just dip a little. Sometimes it stops entirely. In relationships, dysregulation can show up as triggers, shutdown, or emotional overwhelm. In business, it can look like procrastination, brain fog, avoidance, or not being able to access the part of us that knows what to do. No amount of pushing helps in those moments. What actually helps is tending to the nervous system first, letting the body settle so execution can come back online. This is why I keep saying: 💚 regulation isn’t separate from productivity 💚 emotional safety isn’t separate from follow-through 💚 and “doing nothing” for a bit can sometimes be the most strategic move So if you’re struggling to execute right now, it might not be a discipline problem. It might just be your nervous system asking for care. Curious - have you noticed moments where an emotional hit affected your ability to show up or work afterward? 💚