As a small biz owner, there are many roles to fill, hats to wear, to-do lists that never seem finished.
Sprinkle in ADHD — everything feels so much harder. Your mind is constantly whirring. The best analogy I’ve heard is that it feels like you have 102 browser tabs open in your brain — simultaneously — every f*cking day. It’s exhausting. The mental load some days feels so HEAVY.
Neurotypical brains see a task, and it’s literally one task. For me, that one task is 14 different tasks:
The Task - restock facial potions
My Tasks:
- clean off work table before I can get started
wait, the beakers I need are in the sink
- load the dishwasher
- get sidetracked to add dishwasher detergent to my list and look around for other low household items
- hand wash beakers — need them now
- dry + sterilize beakers, utensils, and tools
- grab ingredients
- notice I’m low on some, add to my list of items to reorder
- what else am I low on — “quickly” peruse what else is low
- time blindness sets in
- back to pulling ingredients
measure out ingredients
- let hyaluronic acid hydrate for a couple hrs
- attempt to multitask and printer labels for products made yesterday
- realize I’m hungry bc I never ate breakfast hrs ago
- eat and scroll social media
- right, I was labeling
- wait, check on the serums
- add other ingredients
- crap, time to get kiddo from school
- check and help with his homework
- close to dinner, wtf are we going to eat?
Now I have labeling and serums half done. That “one” task still isn’t done.
🤦🏻♀️