How I overcame my bad habits and learned to manage my time

Hey everyone,

I’m a founder with ADHD. After many years of trouble at school, I was diagnosed with ADHD in 8th grade. When I got diagnosed with ADHD, a decent amount of damage had been done - I identified as the problem child and the kid who was always in detention. The major struggles that I had to overcome were

• Struggling to focus
• Perfectionism, avoidance & fear of failing
• Bad Habits that created time debt
• Time blindness
  Luckily for me, I had the time, intelligence, and work ethic to make adjustments. Here’s how I tackled each of these struggles.

Overcoming my bad habits by developing systems

Throughout college & my life, I developed poor habits that extended into my first job. These poor habits were:

• Sleeping less than 5 hours a night
• Using ADHD meds to keep me awake
• Being late to meetings and not paying attention
• Forgetting tasks and deadlines for projects

Luckily, My first job as a process engineer taught me how to problem-solve, and I applied my learnings to my ADHD. My first solution came from my co-worker. I noticed he always carried a notebook around, and I used to make fun of him, “Why you always got that notebook?”

He replied, “So, I don’t forget everything.” Eventually, I started doing the same. Everywhere I went, I had my notebook. You’d tell me something, and I’d forget it by the end of our chat. I stopped forcing myself to remember everything and just wrote it down. My memory was a terrible system, and I needed a new one. I learned some great lessons from building my first system:

• Be creative and think outside the box
• Focus on your strengths instead of your weaknesses
• Don’t try to improve bad systems (memory, willpower, etc.)
• Make things as easy as possible
• Build systems & iterate
• Don’t overengineer solutions, try something simple first, and iterate if it doesn’t work
• Be consistent with your habit no matter how you’re feeling

The next major habit I developed was consistency. I struggled to form more habits because, after a month, I’d stop doing them. Ultimately, I developed a habit of dropping habits. This created major problems with building new habits and consistently having strong weeks. My solution was to start with an easy habit that I could do every day: making my bed. Yep, it was that simple. I made sure every morning, no matter where I was, I’d make my bed. I still do it to this day. This ultimately allowed me to develop and stick to other habits for the long run. Some of the habits I developed back in 2019 and still do to this day are

• Journaling
• Reviewing my day & planning my next day every night
• Reading or learning something new every day
• Cooking and eating at home
• Drinking water
• Working out
• Clearing out my emails & messages every day
• Contacting my family weekly
• Maintaining friendships
• Working on personal projects
• Getting proper sleep

After developing better habits and consistency, I was able to focus on the habit I struggled with the most: managing my time

Reducing time blindness by building routines

Time blindness wasn’t much of a problem in school because no one depended on me outside of projects and clubs. As long as I completed my work on time, no one cared what I did with my time. When I got into the real world, problems started to arise. Here are a few I dealt with

• planning ahead,
• being late or completely forgetting meetings,
• double-booking myself,
• overestimating how much time I had,
• canceling plans last minute because I missed something,
• staying up too late at night, and being tired in the morning
• missing workouts because I didn't account for it
• Spending hours on a task that took 5 minutes.

My life seemed like it was in shambles. I didn’t have control over my time and was sitting in the back seat as I failed forward. Eventually, I developed new solutions and routines and was in the driver's seat. My time was going into the buckets I cared about rather than being thrown away. I avoided challenges and mistakes by tackling them ahead of time. People even started noticing and were surprised by my organizational skills. The key routines that helped me were

• Checking my calendar before I agree to plans,
• Reviewing my day every night to assess where my time was being spent
• Planning the next day the night before so I don’t miss anything,
• Timeboxing everything in my calendar, so my day has direction and isn’t squandered,
• Tracking how long tasks take so I can plan for them next time,
• Planning my schedule a week ahead, so I move closer to my goals,
• Developing a daily routine to reduce planning and optimizing my day.
  My new routines allowed me to manage my time, juggle tasks, and use my time intentionally. Without these new routines, I’d squander over half of my time. Learning to manage my time has been pivotal to me in running my business, surviving, and avoiding burnout.

Conclusion

Solving these struggles took several years, but it ultimately gave me control over my life, increased my time, and allowed me to progress. My ADHD created speed bumps at every stage that significantly slowed my growth. With time and some problem-solving, I was able to develop systems and solutions to overcome the pitfalls of ADHD and allow the strengths of ADHD to help me flourish. Now, I’m running my own business and on my path to being a successful founder.

Enter Scattermind

I’ve productized my systems into ScatterMind to help you overcome procrastination, build new habits, and achieve your goals. I launched this product in January and reached $1400 MRR by mid-June. If you’re struggling to overcome procrastination & achieve your goals, reach out!

This is a 2 part blog and I'll share the other half later!