This episode with Dani Donovan is all about the creative ways we can help our neurodivergent clients get things done. I first heard of Dani's work when I was interviewing Vanessa Castañeda-Gill, the creator of Social Cipher, for one of our podcast episodes. On the Zoom call, we were just idly chatting about how we, as business owners, navigate the million things we have to do. And Vanessa held up a shiny black-and-gold workbook etched with the title 'The Anti-Planner: How to Get Stuff Done When You Don't Feel Like It'. Her version said a different word than 'stuff', but there is a clean version that says the word 'stuff'. She said this is how she gets stuff done, so I immediately ordered one. And when I looked through it, I felt like this was the tool missing from so many of our toolboxes as clinicians.
 
So, I would venture to say that we all probably struggle with executive function. The executive function demands of this world we live in are very, very high, but research shows that executive function is harder for Autistic folks, even harder for ADHD-ers, and the hardest for AuDHD-ers. Again, that's folks who are Autistic and have ADHD. When it comes to executive function, things like being able to see the steps of how to do something, knowing where to start, and being able to see that that activity will eventually be finished is a big part of it. If you've ever taken a training with me, we spend a lot of time on how we can show Autistic clients of any age these things. How do I start? What are the steps? When will it eventually be finished? 

 

In Dani's work, she walks us through these types of things, but also a lot of other factors at play. So, in the book and in this podcast episode today, we're going to explore five categories, and in each category of barriers for getting things done. It has a ton of subcategories. Just as an example, we might feel unmotivated, like we don't feel excited about the task or interested in it, or we just can't see how it's relevant. Or maybe we feel discouraged or defeated, we don't believe that we can do it. We are tired of failing. We don't think we'll be successful.
 
 In her Anti-Planner and in today's episode, Dani shares creative, playful ways we can help our neurodivergent clients of any age — and frankly, ourselves — get unstuck. If you want a free copy of The Anti-Planner, you can check out our Instagram, which is @learnplaythrive for a giveaway we're offering this week. And for an inside look at some of the incredible art and cool activities for The Anti-Planner, make sure to visit the show notes at learnplaythrive.com/podcast.  But as y'all know, our episodes are never just a commercial for a product. In this interview today, we're actually going to dive into the content with concrete examples about activities that you can use in your work with neurodivergent clients of any age to help them get done the stuff that they need to do. 

 

I want to read to you something that is on the first page of The Anti-Planner. Dani says: "Let me start this off by saying one thing. Your worth is not measured in productivity." So, before we start talking about how we can help our neurodivergent clients get things done, we want to recenter ourselves that our society tells us over and over and over again that we matter if we can accomplish things, if we can produce, if we could eventually create wealth that probably funnels to billionaires somewhere.
 
 And we know on this podcast that people matter because they matter regardless of what they can do, regardless of what they do. And we also know that kids, adults, people of all ages have to get so many things done every day. And when our job is to support them, it is incredibly useful to have relevant, validating, affirming tools. So, we're going to go into this conversation really balancing that. And you'll hear Dani and I discuss this as well. Here is the interview with Dani Donovan.
 
 Hey, Dani! Welcome to the podcast.
 
 Dani:
Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
 
 Meg:
Yeah. Full disclosure, Dani and I have been chatting for like 49 minutes before we actually started the interview. 

Couldn't be me. [Laughs]

All right. But I actually don't fully know your story. So, I’m excited to ask you this question, Dani, like how did you wind up learning so deeply about ADHD and creating The Anti-Planner?
 
 Dani:
So, I have a story that I think, unfortunately, it sounds like a lot of — especially younger women who got missed and found out like later in their life that they had ADHD, although I was not an inattentive type. So, when I was growing up, I was like the chatty cat. The, quote unquote, 'Chatty Kathy' stereotype of using a lot of stimulation. I need a lot of stimulation from talking a lot. I was distracting others because I kept finishing my work too fast.
 
 And so, my mom asked my third-grade teacher and my fifth-grade teacher, "Do you think Dani could have ADHD?" And one of them said, "She can't have ADHD, she's too smart." And one of them said, "Well, she's doing fine in school." And so, both of them really were like, you shouldn't go seek treatment because she appears to be performing well in school, like, not considering any of the social aspects, which is where things were really starting to show up. So, and I didn't know that until I started making ADHD content. So, that's like new to my origin story was finding out that my mom actually did suspect it a long time ago, but she asked teachers who were misinformed about the condition.
 
 And when I went to college, I was a freshman in college and I was in a new city, lost my friend group. My friends had really consisted of people I found out later in life are probably neurodivergent. We tend to find each other, I think, but I lost that crowd. I was starting over and I was really struggling to like make those connections at that same level again. I felt like just, I wasn't connecting and I was really depressed. So, I went in to talk to somebody about depression and she heard how fast I was talking, how quickly I was changing topics, how much I kept apologizing for talking too much.
 
 And it's just sort of this like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, thinking. And she goes, stops me, and says, "Has anyone talked to you about ADHD?" And I remember being offended. Like, I was 19. And I tell this story now, obviously I’ve learned a lot more about ADHD since then, but I had that internal moment where I was like, "I don't want to have that." Everyone I know who has had ADHD is — what is, or was, you know, a quote unquote, you know, in my 19 year old brain, 'an annoying boy in my class who like didn't have friends and people didn't like him'. And I don't want to be like that. Like, that's what I associated with that label. And she told me, she just goes, "Actually, I have ADHD and you remind me a lot of me."

And she handed me a little piece of paper that had the symptoms on it. I remember reading it and being like, "Oh no, this would explain everything." But I shifted my perspective as to what ADHD could look like, because I was like, here's a super successful woman who I really like a lot, who seems to have her life together, and who relates to me. And I could someday be as cool — also, I too could be a cool, successful woman, you know? And so, that really helped to sort of change this idea in my head that I had about ADHD. And then, over time, so I started meds that was, like, those aren't for everybody, but it was life-changing for me.
 
 And then, over time, I ended up seeing another provider who eventually ended up kind of pointing me towards, maybe you want to check online for some community resources. And I found Jessica McCabe's 'How to ADHD' channel back in like 2016. And I remember her YouTube channel. And I remember watching these videos and just bawling about finally realizing why it was hard for me to do laundry. Like, I had only ever thought about my ADHD in the context of how it affected school and how it affected work, because that's how everyone else looked at my ADHD. Nobody said, "Is this why you have a hard time getting yourself to shower?" Nobody said, "Is this why you struggle with laundry, or why you can't get your car fixed, or why —?" You know, like all of these life maintenance things. 

 

And so, that sort of broke my brain a little bit as far as the perspective of how ADHD is the lens through which I experience the entire world. And so, then I went on this hyper-focused journey of learning about ADHD so I could learn about myself so maybe I could stop hating myself a little bit so much. And then, I started creating stuff along with what I was learning. And so, I made this ADHD storytelling flowchart about how other people tell stories like 'Beginning of story, end of story'; and I have like a pre-story prologue and it goes all over the place. And there's like this random thing I just remembered, and like side tangents and then, you know, ends the story, and then apologize. And that was my first ADHD comic and it went viral.

And so, I had this like, wow, there's this community that feels really seen. I’m going to start making more comics. So, I started making more ADHD comics. And then, over time, I was able to see, like, pattern recognition wise, having viral tweets, having viral comics, what resonated with people, what things people struggled with most, where people related to my experiences. And then, over time, I started working on a project to make an ADHD-friendly planner initially. And it was going to be just like a kind of a regular-ish planner with funny words, which I think some people expect that to be what The Anti-Planner is.

And to their credit, that initially was my plan. But I had started using this field guide I was making with little ways I was tricking myself into working on that project. And then, after a while, I sort of looked at the pile of different ways I was tricking myself, and looked at it and went, "This is the thing. This is what's making me do stuff," is truly, like, the ways that are actually helping my ADHD are contained in this little hand-drawn book of things that I change every week. And because every week, there was a new way I was getting stuff done. 
 
 

So, that is what The Anti-Planner ended up turning into. And then, because I looked at how many things there were and went, "This is too much to navigate, I got to make sure this is easy for people to navigate." So, The Anti-Planner has got over 100 different ways to get things done. And that's a lot to navigate. So, I wanted to figure out how can I group this by, like, what is getting in the way? Why is getting stuff done hard? So, I'll talk about that a little later. But I just — thank you for coming to my 10 TED Talks.
 
 Meg:
Oh, no, I love that story. And I have had so many guests on the podcast who have this high level of expertise in a topic around something neurodevelopmental without any degrees around it, just through that neurodivergent deep exploration. And watching that way of learning is a great joy of my life. I am so in awe of it. I have two neurodivergent kids. And when I watch the way they have ideation and if they have the time and space and resources, they can create something incredible very, very quickly. And I don't learn like this, but I have this — I love it. I love it so much. And I think it has there's so much to offer the world through the way folks can deep dive into things. 

 

And you mentioned that one of the cool things about The Anti-Planner is that it's not prescriptive, I guess. It's not a demand. It's not like, "Here is what you do right now." And one of the things that most providers know is really hard when we're supporting ADHD-ers is that something works until it doesn't, right? Like, it's like, "Oh, that's novel. I'll try it." And then, it doesn't. And that can feel kind of like we're failing as providers because then it's like, "Oh, do I have to keep introducing something new? What do I what do I do?" So, I want to ask you to talk a little bit more about why traditional executive function supports can be ineffective for neurodivergent folks. And what about the way you've put this together is more effective?
 
 Dani:
So, one of the things that I did very early on when I realized that I didn't want this to be a planner was kind of realizing I need to like forensic, like, dissect what makes planners not work for me. And I want to dissect what makes — I love bullet journals, you know, but like what made bullet journals — anything I had started and stopped. So, I had planners, I had self-help workbooks, I had self-help books, I had bullet journaling, I had, you know, coaching, I had — like, coaching was helpful.
 
 But I had all of these different things that I then broke into these categories of what works for me, and why doesn't this work for me. And so, starting off with this sort of reverse engineering approach of if I can take the things that work and keep those, and take the things that don't work and make sure I’m designing around those, that's already going to be helpful. I didn't know what the answer was yet. But I knew that that was sort of why would I put things in there that set myself up for failure. 

 

And the thing that kept coming up over and over and over again was the repetition, was that there is one solution, here's your one system. And if that system stops working for you, you're SOL. And that is the killer for me is, like, I just — like, there's a cycle of I desperately want to get my life together. I’m going to buy a new product to try to make that happen. I’m going to do it for a little, you know, either not open it or do it for a little bit, and then inevitably quit. After I inevitably quit, I’m going to feel bad about myself. I’m going to avoid it. I’m going to think, you know, negatively until, and I’m going to struggle in silence until it gets so bad that I desperately want to get my life together and I buy a new thing. 

 

And that's how we get this closet of, for a lot of us, where self-improvement may be our oldest hobby, we are desperately trying to find those things to make our lives easier because other people's lives don't feel like they look as hard as ours kind of feel. And so, I ended up finding that the linchpin in all of this was 'inevitably quit'. Inevitably quit was the thing that launched everything else. 

 

And I was like, if I could plan, you can plan on this happening. You can plan that this is what's going to occur. And if you were going to plan on, guess what? Your brain is not going to magically turn into a different brain that suddenly is consistent. If we can plan on the only consistent thing in your life is that you're inconsistent, we can plan to have a bunch of backup plans. And so, with The Anti-Planner, the reason why I think a lot of people find it so effective is if one thing doesn't work for you, you have a bunch of other stuff to try. But if something does work for you and then you stop doing it, that's okay because you get to move on to something else.
 
 And instead of having to buy a hundred self-help books or read a hundred articles or watch a hundred videos, you've kind of got them collected in one place. And so, on top of the fact that I know there are people who have strategies that work for them, but they forget about them. It's like in therapy where you learn something, and then a year later you have the same exact epiphany. And it's like you already had this epiphany, but you forgot.
 
 And so, I think that there's a lot of remembering that tools exist as well as being able to try a bunch of different tools, especially for which one kind of fits. Because I’ve always said that resistance, you know, people just focus on everything being like a nail. So, if you've got a planner and a planner is a hammer, that solves a very specific problem of hammering it and getting a nail to go into the wall. But if I gave you another screw item and told you to get it in the wall and you hammered it and it didn't go in, but you got the nail to go in, fine. You couldn't get this one to go in. And you think to yourself, "Well, I’m broken. Something is wrong with me." And if you zoom in and look at the actual resistance, you see that it's a screw and a hammer was not made to get a screw into the wall. A screwdriver looks completely different. The motion that you have to use to get it into the wall is completely different. 

 

And so, if you can find, you can get a nail into the hammer — or sorry, a screw into the wall with a hammer, but you're not going to have a good time. And so, if you can find a matching tool that goes along with that resistance, it is like custom fit for it. So, with The Anti-Planner, it's like if you're feeling intimidated by a task, being able to locate an activity that is specifically targeted to helping you when you feel intimidated means that you're actually much more likely for success than a blanket umbrella solution that's going to try to solve all of your problems.

 Meg:
I love that. Yeah, you're taking shame out of it when we plan for this. Like, "I’m expecting this to stop working and I have other places I can turn when it does." So, one of the things that really drew me to The Anti-Planner was how broadly it approaches the topic of helping ADHD-ers and other neurodivergent folks who struggle with executive function get things done when they don't feel like it. So, as an OT, it's easy to look at executive function, really impactful pieces like can this person see the steps of the activity? Do they know how to initiate? Can they see that it'll eventually be finished? And these are really important. And looking through your planner made me think about how it misses a lot of the other factors that could be at play.
 
 I was thinking about my nine-year-old needs to know why something is important. Writing is hard. Will not do the writing activity just because he's supposed to do it, but will do it to, like, he'll write a protest sign all day. Or developers are trying to cut down our urban forest to make a soccer stadium. And his teacher was like, "He wrote twice as much as I asked him to on that," right? So, I know if he can see the why, then he can do the thing. And so, you have five categories.

And I want to actually talk about each of them, starting with the first one, which is when a person is feeling stuck. What's it like to feel stuck? How is this often misunderstood? And what are some examples? I want to say you have so many in your Anti-Planner, so many. There's like 20, but just give us a few examples of what kinds of things might help.

Dani:
So, the thing that I love with the different sections, you know, starting with stuck is that there is not — there's not even just one kind of stuck. And so, for all of the categories, wanting to be able to navigate how do I get to an activity that's going to help or a strategy that's going to help, I found that there are 16 different kind of main reasons why I wasn't getting stuff done.
 
 But 16 tabs is too many to look through. That's too many things to be like, what am I feeling? And like, oh, my God, now I’m overwhelmed by how many tabs. And so, I wanted to figure out, like, are there sort of overarching themes in the way that like a feelings wheel has, you know, angry, but there's betrayed and there's, you know, frustrated. And those are two different types of angry. And so, there are different types of stuck.
 
 So, in that section, I’ve got difficulty getting started, indecisive, perfectionistic, and distracted. And all of them are self-sabotaging behaviors and all of them are inertia problems, right. And so, it's the momentum is not there because there's something in the way. I’m often getting in my own way. And so, that can be really challenging. So, for stuck, again, it matters a lot, kind of like what type of suck you're feeling, because if you are feeling stuck 'cause you're distracted and you can't get off your phone, the strategy that you're going to need is different than someone who's like, "I’m so perfectionistic that I can't get myself to work on this because I don't want to do it unless I can do it a hundred percent right." 

 

And my favorite thing to do in the perfectionistic section, which is the one that I live in — perfectionism, intimidation, and difficulty prioritizing, which all go hand in hand, which is very funny. But I find that there's one in the book called 'How to half-ass it'. And in the clean, there's a clean edition, clean language edition that calls it something else, but it's instead of just making a to-do list, you are separating a project into your must-haves and nice-to-haves. And the must-have list is if I take this part off, this project cannot be considered complete. Like, if I could take it off and it could still be technically considered complete, it goes on a nice-to-have list.

And so, then what you do is you do just the must-haves first. And then, if you've got extra time, you can go to the nice-to-haves and you can make it super pretty. You can do stuff that technically is going above and beyond what is required to do because you want to, not because you got stuck in there. And so, it allows for less time, you know, spinning your wheels in a little pitfall of wanting to make something perfect. And then, looking at, oh, my God, I lost six hours trying to find the perfect font. And, you know, what am I going to do now?

So, like, I love that one for perfectionism. But sometimes you just need help with the like inertia of like, how do I get started? How do I decide what to do? I’ve got so much stuff to do and I’m just sitting here thinking about doing it but I’m not doing anything. The ultimate executive dysfunction of 'I know what I need to do, but I can't get myself to do it'. And one of my favorite things is also dice roll, which is where you kind of like turn yourself into a little D&D character. And so, I’ve got different ranges on there where it might be like 1-through-6 is I’m going to answer email. 7-through-10 is do dishes. 11-through-19 is like work on this work project. And 20 is like video games. So, and then you roll a 20-sided die. And if you get a 20, if you get a 20 and the universe gives you permission to procrastinate, it's like, awesome.

Because then, if you end up doing something anyway, you not only are doing something, but  I feel like a rock star because technically I didn't have to and I am anyway. So, you get this extra boost of feeling good about yourself if you do end up working anyways. But otherwise, you know, you roll it and it tells you you're going to work on this activity and because it's weighted, that 12 — or what did I say? Like, 11-through-19, there's a way higher chance that you're going to roll that one because that's the one that's technically the most important, but there is still a chance I'll get the other ones.

And so, when you roll it, that's the number you get. You circle it and you can't — you start immediately in the same way that when you're playing D&D, if you roll a dice, like, and you don't like the die you rolled, you don't get to argue. You don't get to roll it again. And it's like, you decided, you rolled, this is what you get. And so, being able to implement that into real life and sort of a 'The universe has decided for me' way, it really has helped a lot. So, I was actually doing that for, I think, like, four or five years before I even started working on the Anti-Planner.

Meg:
Wow. I can't wait to hear the stories of providers setting this up, maybe together in collaboration with like a PDA client being like, let's make the list together. What is dice roll 1? What is dice roll 19? And then, rolling dice and seeing how this goes in their sessions and then helping clients generalize that to their lives for when they're feeling stuck. Anything else you want to add on stuck?
 
 Dani:
I really think that some of the things that people struggle, obviously, like, struggling with the like getting started, the biggest thing to overcome is creating that momentum and getting, like, especially for perfectionism, I cannot overstate how many — especially women I talked to — but how much perfectionism, that people don't realize that neurodivergent people are so perfectionistic that often wanting to do a good job so that we can avoid criticism is where it's at. And so, being able to recognize when the stuckness is driven by fear, fear of criticism, fear of making mistakes, or fear of being mediocre, fear of not being exceptional. That's a big thing for me. It's like, I've got to feel special and unique and amazing because that's what I expect for myself. And I expect that's what everybody expects from me on everything. And so, I think that understanding where those expectations and where those fears can come in can also go a long way.
 
 Meg:
Yeah. Thank you. I know there's a lot of high-achieving ADHD professionals just scribbling down notes as they listen to this.
 
 Dani:
It me, it me, it me.
 
 Meg:
[Laughs] Yeah. All right. The next category is overwhelmed. Y'all Dani's art is so cool. And as I’m naming these categories, she's holding up the cover art for that section. I'll put a few pictures in the show notes, which are at learnplaythrive.com/podcast. Talk to us, Dani, about overwhelmed. What does this look like and what kinds of things help?

Dani:
So, overwhelm is a lot like — oh, I kind of forgot to say this — stuck is an inertia problem, right. And so, what you need for an inertia problem, I feel very weird — I’m going to say WD-40, you know, right. And if you, or you need — I feel so weird saying lube on a podcast, but like, that's what you need.

 

You need a lubricant like WD-40 or whatever. 

 

Yes, or whatever, in order to get something that isn't moving, moving. So, that is the tool in the toolbox. Everything that is in that section sort of goes around how to make it more seamless so that things that don't want to move, move. And overwhelm, it's a lot more about it's an issue of my capacity is being drowned out by the demand. So, I have this much demand and this much capacity, and my cup overfloweth. If there's only so much that can go in my cup and I keep pouring water into a cup that's already full, and that's, oh, and it's going over the sides, right. 

 

And so, the capacity, it's even less of like, "Well, how do I get a bigger cup so that I can keep, you know, filling it and filling it, filling it?" And instead learning how to work with the cup that you have. And be, you know, kind of realistic about that. And so, a lot of advice that I ended up giving people, the first thing is what can you take off your plate? Like, the first, what can you — list out your to-do list. And like, what stuff can you technically, if you needed it to go, to put it on like a future list or a Sunday list and just take it off your immediate to-do list so that your list is shorter? What can we take off and only have the stuff that you need to do on this? That's step one, is like to reduce the overwhelm is to have less stuff demanding your attention. 

 

And then, going into what, you know, so in overwhelm, the sections that I’ve gotten, there are intimidated, overcommitted, panicked, and burnt out. And so, overcommitted is — so, intimidated might be, "Oh, I’ve got so much stuff to do." If you're able to eliminate some of that stuff or break it down, you can often be able to move past that quicker. With over-committed, the same thing is how do I decrease the amount of water I’m pouring in?

In that section, there's how to ask for help, how to set boundaries to tell people no, or that you have too much work going on or that you need to reprioritize if they're asking more things of you. There's like social scripts in there. And instead of always apologizing or taking on work because you're afraid to tell people 'No', here's a variety of ways to nicely tell people 'No' or push back in ways that are going to give you some of that capacity back.

And then, you know, panicked in the moment, where often so many of us just leave it to the last second and everything is on fire. That works for us sometimes, but it causes this anxiety that can be difficult to overcome. And so, a lot of that section is more about kind of grounding yourself so that you can regulate enough to be able to work on it.

And then, burnt out is about giving yourself some of that energy back. Once you're already, once it's already gone, you know, the gas tank is already empty, how do we get some fuel back in it so that you're not trying to drive on empty and ruin your car, you know?

Meg:
Yeah. I've enjoyed watching Spoons Theory go a little more mainstream. So, when somebody says, "Oh, I don't think I have the spoons for that today," it's like a not-self-shaming way to assess your own capacity and decide your 'Yes' or 'No'. A little bit of nuance. I feel like it's important too for folks to be able to realize when saying 'Yes' to something will fill their cup because I think this like, "We need to say 'No' more," has been over applied until folks are pulling themselves out of their social communities by saying 'No' to anything that feels hard or inconvenient but might actually be cup-filling in a social way.

I’ve just noticed that trend especially amongst folks in the mental health world that it's like I’m saying no more but those folks wind up isolated because they're saying 'No' more to improve their capacity to get more stuff done, but what about the saying 'Yes' to things that aren't productive but are like cup-filling and energizing? I think it's easy to miss the mark if we aren't also bringing in, like, what should I be saying 'Yes' to outside of the lens of productivity.

Dani:
I think that's such a great point. And I actually did this the other day because there's so much stuff that, like, as a small business owner that I'm working on, you know. And when you have your own company it's like you don't have Monday-through-Friday, 8-to-5 kind of hours. You are, like, always on weekends, you work with the energy that you've got when you've got it. And if you're on a roll, it's very difficult to want to turn it off to go do something else because what if I don't get back to this? And we had some, you know, I moved to Atlanta a few years ago, making friends has been hard. And I made a friend at the airport on the way back to Atlanta a couple months ago, and we have hung out a couple times. 

 

And we were gonna go and do something, and me and my husband were both kind of really deep in work mode. And he was like, "Oh, maybe we can reschedule this and blah, blah, blah," and I kind of stopped but I had to bring it back and remind ourselves, like, we have made it a goal to try to get out more. We have made it a goal to try to be friends. And if we continue to prioritize the thing that we're already prioritizing, we will not get closer to this goal. And so, I think that saying 'No' to things that are not aligned with like your long-term goals versus if you are saying 'No' to things just because so that, like you said, so that you can keep working, I think that there definitely is something where you are absolutely right; that we could be turning things down in order to be more productive versus saying I want to be more connected, I want to feel closer with my family or I want to spend more time with my kids or, you know, what have you.

Meg:
Yeah. Yes, thank you for sharing that personal story. Dani's in Atlanta, so you funny people with your energetic game night are gonna be, you're gonna be getting emails. 

 

Yes, @DaniDonovan, DM me. [Laughs]

 

Okay. So, we talked about feeling stuck, we talked about feeling overwhelmed. Is there anything else you want to add about overwhelmed?
 
 Dani:
Oh, the last thing is that in the way that pain is exhibited by your body to let you know that something is wrong; like, you've got a splinter and it immediately zooms into where something is invading your body. That's like, something is here that's not supposed to be here, ahh! Anxiety, I have found, is your brain's way of trying to get you to slow down. Anxiety is like the pain, one of the pains of, you know, the brain and to let you know that something is wrong. And so, I used to just get so caught up in the feeling of getting swept away in the feelings, instead of being able to learn to step back and see them for what they are. 

 

I get so annoyed by people who are like, "Oh, my God, have you tried meditation?" And have you tried meditation, and then I did try meditation for a while. I’m like, dang it, this helped, I’m so annoyed. Yes, and so, being able to learn to step back and see the situation, see the behaviors from an objective standpoint where you're looking through a window at the storm and you're not standing in the storm, you know, with thunder and lightning blowing your hair all over the place is really helpful. But being able to recognize I’m feeling this way because something is wrong — like, if I’m feeling this way, something is wrong, and if I can help identify what that thing that is, say, wrong, is that's causing the pain; if I can address that, then this anxiety might be able to cease.

 

Thank you. Yeah, when this comes out we will already have an episode out from Dr. Bowen Marshall who's an ADHD psychotherapist who talks about dirty dopamine, how we can use —

[Laughs] I love that so much. I don't even know a hundred percent, but I'm already, like, I’m sold.

Yeah, it's using the dopamine that comes from stress and anxiety to motivate ourselves to do the thing. Like, dopamine mining by being like, "Oh, let me just think about all the bad things that'll happen if I don't do it." And I appreciate you giving us an alternative to that. And for the folks who are like, "Oh, I would like to explore meditation or mindfulness as it relates to like anxiety more but don't have an entry point," Pema Chödrön's books, I don't know if you've read her, I read her as a young adult, are very, very good. There's one called 'When Things Fall Apart' so it's a really accessible place for folks to start who don't want to just be told to, "Go meditate," if you need an intellectual exploration first
 
 Dani:
I was gonna mention Headspace, the Headspace app. I absolutely love Headspace. It's so — it's got beautiful illustrations and animations that use metaphors to teach you about what meditation is and isn't. So, it cleared up a lot of my misconceptions about what I was supposed to be doing because I thought I was just supposed to be emptying my brain of thoughts, and if I was thinking that I was doing it wrong. And if you've got younger, either younger clients or people where it's like difficult to stop the thoughts from zooming, I have found myself — and this isn't in the book but I want I want to mention it in future books — is lighting a candle and watching the candle flame, right, you know. I’ve got some kind of music or something on and I’ve got kind of music or rain sounds on, and just looking at the candle. 

 

And I don't have to close my eyes but giving myself something small to focus on that's moving, like, it's wild how much my thoughts can kind of settle and dissipate if I am able to watch something instead of, you know, so a lot of times there's like, "Oh, you've got to close your eyes, you've got to do this." It's like, you've got to do what works for you. So, the candle thing I’ve noticed works for me. And Headspace, my younger stepson, we had also been using. And then, they've also got some amazing SOS packs for when I’m panicking. There's like a three-minute activity. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve done, you know, the burnt out one, or the feeling overwhelmed one. So, there's a ton of interactive, in-the-moment follow along ones.
 
 Meg:
Thank you. I love that candle example. I think gathering around a flame is as old as humanity, too. There's a very deep ancestral sort of tie-in for all of us there as well. 

 

My caveman brain is like oh, fire!

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay. And I also want to say as we move through these that I think everyone will identify with feeling all of these sometimes. So, I don't want everybody to walk away being like, "Wait! Do I have ADHD?" I mean maybe, but also the executive function demands of our world hardly let us be full humans, right. It's just hard for everybody. It's going to be harder for Autistic folks. It's going to be hardest for AuDHD-ers. Generally when they study executive function in research, ADHD-ers struggle more than Autistic folks and AuDHD-ers struggle the most. But we all need tools other than dirty dopamine which I think some of us have historically relied on. So, the next one that I think will be familiar to everyone is feeling unmotivated. Can you talk about what that looks like and what might help?

 Dani:
So, if, you know, we've got the kind of — I keep starting them with a little bit of the toolbox, you know, metaphors with things. But with unmotivated is kind of like having a dead battery where you just don't have the spark to keep going. And it's not — your engine's not revving and so you need something to sort of light you up again, to make something exciting, to make something interesting, to light a fire. It's like lighting a fire under your own butt, right. And so, learning how to do that is difficult. And so, the sections, the subsections in unmotivated are: Waiting to feel like it, lacking accountability, disinterested, and uninspired. And I think sometimes people ask like, "Oh, what's the difference between disinterested and uninspired?" 

And uninspired really is like I used to want to do this or I used to be doing this and then I lost momentum, or I lost interest, or I lost whatever it was, like, the momentum and my passion died out, and now I need to like restart something; versus disinterested which is I’ve never wanted to do this in the first place, I hate doing this, I don't want to think about this, I don't — dishes, you know. I’m like, I don't want to do this, I wish this magically went away. But a lot of people relate to like waiting to feel like it which is the, like, we're letting emotions dictate what it is that we're working on because we can convince ourselves — I always joke that I’ve got like a six-year-old who lives in my brain who's very persuasive, who's very good at negotiating, you know, their bedtime, who's very good at negotiating what they want. 

 

And I give in, and the more I give in to that voice, the more they win the more. That they know, you know, I could put up a fight with everything, I can resist everything. Everything is negotiable. I don't have to technically do anything. And so, then I start kind of coasting on like just doing what it takes to survive and then watching TV the rest of the time, which sometimes that's, you know, you've got to do what you got to do to survive. That's another thing to sort of step back from that self-judgment when I catch myself kind of saying it, but the 'I'll do it but not right now' really is the kind of crux of what unmotivated is for so many of us. And that's where the excuse making often kind of comes in.

Meg:
Yeah, thank you. What are some activities or exercises that might help when folks are feeling unmotivated?
 
 Dani:
So, one of the things in here which was something from my field-notes guide back before I realized I was making The Anti-Planner, I had started making a thing I called an 'Excuse list'. And this — let me get the thing in the book, because I put — this is 'Calling yourself out on your BS' but I have: You've likely heard the term or the phrase, "You're just making excuses" That really hurts because others often don't get why things can be so hard. This exercise is meant for you, not to be viewed by anyone else. It is meant to be helpful, not shameful. Write down some common excuses you tell yourself in order to avoid working on tasks. And then, you're going to do counter arguments where you come up with a rebuttal for each excuse that focuses on why you should do something instead of why you shouldn't. 

 

And so, I had actually someone who was doing a review for this it was like, "Oh, my God, I hate, you know, excuse lists. Like, this is shaming." And then, they read that part where it says like, "This is meant to be helpful, not shameful. This is for you, not anybody else," and they go oh, okay. She framed it in a way where this is empowering and not what excuses, you know, what are other people kind of saying to you.

 

And so, some of the things that are in the book as examples are from my original field-notes guide which is like, "I don't feel like it," but the rebuttal being like, "I can set a timer for five minutes and then stop if I want to." Or, "I don't have time," and then saying like, "I make time for things that are important to me." And or, "I don't know how," with, "I am a smart capable adult who knows how to look things up," right. And sort of read — one of the things for me that was really helpful. 

 

And then, I go back and I have to look at my own handwriting, I have to look at my own list, and think to myself like why is this important to me. And that's another thing in here which is like there's this goal setting, like, everybody talks about goal setting and making SMART goals. And those never really worked for me, but being able to get really clear — I’ve got one in here that's called like 'Setting goals that don't suck' that really walks you through what you want and like why you want it. But also, what it's going to take to get there and are you going to, like, what are the steps associated with it. Are you going to like taking the steps that are going to be required to get you to your goal? 

 

Because the less you like those steps, the harder this is going to be. Are you actually considering that if you wanted to do something long-term, that that's going to involve having to do these steps over and over and over and over again. Is it going to be like pulling teeth, you know? 

There's some stuff in here that pretty much makes you reassess how to set realistic goals that you are most likely to come up with, and then brainstorming in advance what's going to make it hard to achieve. So, you're thinking in advance about how am I — and also, how am I going to keep going when things get hard. And so, there are a lot of people, I think, who set goals and there's none of this kind of work that is pre-problem solving in advance. And so, some of that, you know, again, could kind of come in helpful. So, that is a more realistic way of setting goals I really like a lot.
 
 Meg:
Yeah, no, I love that. And what I keep thinking is that the color of your glasses, the color of your lens on this is very clear. It's not rose colored; it’s not shame colored. It's just very clear. Like, okay, some stuff about this might be hard. This is too hard, is it going to be too hard to move through the steps, do we need to simplify? And I really am enjoying imagining, as I hear you talking, modeling, moving through processes like these with our clients who might be children. And we're modeling doing it without shame. They're going to know for us, from us, that we're writing down. What are your protests, what are your stories, what are your why-nots, and we're writing them down with a lot of curiosity and no shame so that we can make a plan together. And I can imagine, too, when you start doing this for yourself or with a child or with an adult client, that if we're asking them — you wrote these to do for yourself with yourself, right? But if we're imagining, like, okay, what's the rebuttal? Sometimes that's just going to be space that gets left open, right. I don't know yet, but now you've opened up some curiosity inside of me that might take some time to fill of like what might the rebuttal be. 
 

Dani:
Yeah. And the ones that I mentioned, too, are sort of more like, I would say, high level at those, like, excuse, I would say, excuse levels. But so much of the stuff in the disinterested section, and the lacking accountability section, and the waiting to feel like it's section, like, this is the section with so many games. There's procrastination blackjack, there's task battle which is essentially like task battleship. It's like a two-player thing where you take turns guessing each other's task spots, and if you get one you don't get to — you hit somebody's, they don't get to guess another one of your spots until they finish their task. And so, there's sort of this, like, which a lot of people I've found, a lot of parents are using this with their kids, or their kids get to see I have stuff I don't want to do, too. This is my list of stuff I don't want to do, you've got your list of stuff you don't want to do, and we're going to take turns doing our stuff versus me just telling you do this stuff you don't want to do.
 
 Meg:
That's so cool. You know, when we talk about playful parenting for toddlers which is very, very effective, Gillian Boudreaux once said on her podcast, if you have somebody who's lost in like their inattentiveness, they're in their own mind world, the way to get them back isn't by shaming them, it's by making the present moment as inviting as possible so they want to be in it. I think about that a lot with being playful with children as we move through all the things they have to do. And people say, "Oh, yeah, but what about the real world? The real world won't create a game for you when you have to do something." But like — yeah, you're shaking your head. Like, you just proved them wrong.

Dani:
Yes, the limitations that you, like, you are limited by your own beliefs, right. And so, if you think that like the world's not going to be like that, then it's like, no, you can't. And you can teach your kids that they can create that world. And so, I think that like so much of this is self-engineering. And the reason why it's fun for me to come up with ideas and why I think showing kids enough ideas and then helping — actually, in this section, in the unmotivated section in disinterested, I have an activity called 'DIY Productivity Strategies'. And in the DIY productivity strategies, there's pretty much a cookbook on here's how a couple of the strategies from The Anti-Planner are structured. So, there's like procrastination hit-list which is like a grid of these Wanted posters, and you doodle your most avoided tasks as these little cartoon villains. So, you know, you've got like moldy coffee cups and I’ve got like little angry eyebrows on a little, you know, coffee mug. And that's the theme. 

 

So, I’ve got creativity, novelty, the silly doodles, which means I’ve got drawing and humor. The stabbing — and then, instead of checking them off once you get them done, you stab it with your pencil so there's like a little hole in it that's kind of gratifying. So, I’ve got like action and gratification. But there's this whole spread that, yeah, I don't think you can probably see very well from here, but it’s what concepts do I find engaging, what interests do I enjoy, what topics am I passionate about. And then, there's a bunch, and there's examples. And then, there's gamification strategies. So, like the most effective tools, especially for kiddos who are like, "Ahh! Don't tell me what to do!" is to go okay, well, you are going to tell us what to do. Like, what is going to work best for you, what interests do you have? 

 

And I think we're going to talk about this a little later, about how can you focus on helping kids to invent their own games, but telling them from a very, you know, imprinting from a very young age that you can make the world and the experiences that you want to have is real, right. When you go to the doctor and you get a shot they've got, you know, the little box that's got all the, you know, stickers and like prizes and stuff for like, "Oh, you did something hard! Congratulations, here's a kazoo," or whatever the thing is. I have a literal basket that I bought with merch from one of my favorite shows and I don't — I put it all in a basket and I don't let myself have it. And when I have something that's really hard that I keep putting up that I’m not doing, I make a Post-It note and I put it on one of the things. And when I get that thing done, I get to go get something out of my prize basket like I’m bribing myself with a little carrot in front of my face. And some people they might think that that's stupid or childish, and I go, I don't care! It works. It's been working!

Meg:
Yeah, so I struggle with this because one of the things that we've worked really hard on is to get providers to stop dangling carrots at the end of strings to bribe, you know, Autistic kids to do things that they're — the problem with the child doing this thing is that they can't see the steps, they can't see where to start, they don't understand the meaning of it, it feels like a demand they're too dysregulated, right? Using the bribe to just override all of the other barriers. And, then I talked to ADHD adults who say like, no, like, I think Vanessa Castañeda-Gill said this in her episode, too, like, "Sometimes when I’m having a more ADHD moment I need to promise myself a treat if I do the thing." The dopamine piece is really real and we don't want folks dopamine mining using fear and anxiety. 

 

So, it's interesting to think about affirming ways to use that desire for dopamine. My six-year-old says, "Will you like grab a treat or a prize from somewhere in the house and give it to me after I go finish this thing that I don't want to do because I need something?" Like, she knows. She's like, please bribe me. And I’m like ahh, I’m trying to tell people not to bribe people, and you're asking me to bribe you? So, it's an interesting thing to navigate. Like, how can we use the treat, the reward, the promise of dopamine in a way that isn't wielding our power over them for compliance?

Dani:
Yeah, I think that the amount of times that it's happened for me, like the prize basket, is for stuff I’ve been putting off for, like, thought about doing, or started to do, or tried to do for like months. It is not like, "Oh, I was gonna do this anyway," or, you know, "Oh, I’ve been trying, I tried to do this yesterday and it's not working." Like, those are my big ticket, like, you know, say big ticket items when nothing else has worked. So, I pretty much try everything else and if nothing else has worked this is the basket for like, okay, I've got to pull out the big guns. 

 

But I can't do that all the time or else I’m gonna be spending too much money, you know, so I think that that's really where it's at. Because you don't want to just be on — and I agree with kids, you don't want to get them so used to that that then when they're out in the real world, unless they've got a bunch of money to be buying themselves prizes or if they don't have the, you know, ability to hold those prizes themselves because they're used to someone else holding the carrot, if they buy, you know, go get themselves a bunch of carrots and you eat all the carrots because no one else is holding the carrots, like, you definitely don't want to set them up for a system in which prizes or external motivation like that is the only motivator.
 
 Meg:
Thank you. Yeah, I really enjoy exploring the nuance of this. And some things just suck, like getting a shot. And the families that are like, "We always go out for ice cream after, you know, we get our flu shots," I’m like 10 out of 10, like, that's a solid routine. So, yeah, thanks for exploring that nuance with me. I want to go to the next category which is disorganized. Can you talk about feeling disorganized?

 

Dani:
Yes. So, disorganization is in a lot of ways what — like, just chaos, right? Like, which sounds obvious when you're like, oh, it's a lack of organization. But your stuff's all over the place. And so, similar to, again, if we're going back to the toolbox analogy, it's having everything out in the open and no containers. You have nothing that's separating these are my screwdrivers, these are my nails, these are my tools, this is my where my stuff goes. You don't have a home for things. And that's one of the biggest problems with me. So, the two sections in this are messy and difficulty prioritizing. And I’m currently working on content for a future thing about being time blind and routineless, because time blindness and difficulties sticking with routines are also disorganization things that I just didn't include in this one because I hadn't thought of it yet.

 

But the messiness in particular can be difficult on kind of two fronts because I will get stuff. Buying things is fun. Buying or spending money on like organizational, like, places to put things is hard. It was just wild to me that I — and then, because I don't have places to put things, that's where the doom piles end up, is I don't know where to put this so this goes right here. Every surface is fair game as a dumping ground, right. The floor, the tables, any — oh, a new table? I could just turn my computer around and show you every surface around me that's just covered in stuff, right. 

 

And so, being able to feel motivated and empowered for a couple different things of noticing maybe the reason why I’ve done this, why I let it get so bad, and then I do this sudden clean where I spend seven hours cleaning this room and it looks beautiful, and then it slowly descends into chaos, and my brain's like, "Oh, my God, I always do this! Why do I even try?" Because when it gets that dirty and I clean it all up at once, that's a project. I am getting dopamine from the before and after. Little teeny, like, pickups, little teeny routine tidy ups isn't rewarding in the same way that, like, oh, I feel accomplished after I’ve gotten suddenly kind of hyper-focused.

 

And so, I’ve got a couple things in the organizational section that really focus on how to, again, work with the brain you've got, not the brain you wish you had. And so, some of that is if you are the type of person that does, like, the way that you clean is through big giant bursts of cleaning and that's how you operate, what if we tried accepting that, right? And maybe bringing the threshold down a little bit for like what the 'I am so anxious that I have to do something about it', you might be able to bring that threshold down. 

 

But what I find if you're the type of person that does that that is really helpful is I will set up my phone to take a time-lapse video and then I will, you know, so I’ve got the before, so I’ve got the messy, messy room, and then I hit the time start on the time-lapse video. And then, I'll clean the room, clean the room, clean the room. And now this is great for a couple reasons because I am not going to get on my phone because my phone is being used so I can't take it off the, you know, thing and go check Twitter or whatever it is. I can't get distracted by that. But I am also much less likely to poop out halfway through because when you are done, you have this really satisfying video of the entire place getting cleaned like you're on a, you know, Home Network — what's that, like, TLC kind of show? You get the satisfaction at the end. And I will disrupt that satisfaction if I don't finish cleaning this area. So, I’ve got motivation to finish. And then, you know, I keep going, and so then when it's done I have a clean space, but then I’ve also got this really satisfying, like, I can feel so proud of myself, I can watch it over and over again, like, look how hard I worked kind of moment. And so, for me, that's also great for like B-roll later on for, you know, TikToks and whatnot. But for other people I’ve found that they really enjoy doing this because they do get that proud before and after moment. 

 

And I’ve found cleaning wise, that's probably one of the best ways for me to do cleaning as well as this is my other tip, which is the instead of going like, "I’m gonna clean my room," and then when I’m done cleaning my room, "I’m gonna clean the kitchen," then when I’m done cleaning the kitchen, "I’m gonna clean the living room." It's like, I’m gonna grab a trash bag and walk around and grab the trash from every room. Just trash. All I’m looking for is trash. Trash goes in the trash bag, done. Then I’m gonna walk around with a laundry hamper. Every single piece of clothing and blankets and stuff that's just not where it's supposed to, goes in the laundry hamper. Laundry hamper goes away. Then you go through all the rooms and go, I’m going to grab all the dishes. I’m going to grab every coffee cup, every fork and bowl that I got forgotten about. Everything just goes to the kitchen. You don't even have to deal with it right now. It's just in the right place. Now, it's amazing how much that will clear up a space on its own.

 

And I say in the book, if that's all you have in you, congratulations, like, that's amazing. You still did something. And you don't have to do it perfectly. If that's all you get, you're still going to feel good about the space. If you want to keep going, then what you can do is take all the stuff that's left and put it where, when you're in that space, I’m going to divide it into, okay, this stuff goes into the bathroom. This stuff all goes into the kitchen. This stuff all goes, like, I start dividing out the stuff into piles of where that stuff goes rather than walking it to the place where it goes and then coming back. And so, that saves me a bunch of trips. And then, I will take the piles to where the piles go. 

 

And now, if I’ve got energy to get all of this stuff, it all builds on if I have more energy and time, then I can keep going. But at the end of the day, even if all I do is make piles and put them in the rooms where they go, the stuff is in the rooms where they're supposed to be. So, like, how do you set yourself up for success knowing that you could poop out at any moment and you don't end up with that situation where you started a big project and you secretly made it messier than it was before?
 
 Meg:
Yes. Yeah. I love that. I love that that's working with hyper-focus instead of working against it too, like, we're just doing this one thing. But it's also, you know, if folks have ever done something like distance running at the end, you're like, I can't go anymore. I’m just going to go to that mailbox. Like, making the steps really bite-sized also makes it so much easier to get started. I use the stop motion videos for my daughter brushing her hair as well. 'Cause she hates it and it's hard and her hair tangles easily and it takes a long time, but the videos are so cute, and so goofy, and so fun. And I mean, that's the good dopamine, right? The, like, look, look at this cool, like, visually cool evidence that I just accomplished something hard. That's a really good positive source of dopamine. Let's see the next category. The final category is discouraged. Yes.
 
 Dani:
So, this is the one on the discouraged section, which is a lot of feelings. It's the feels section. Like, I’m really deep in my feels, right. And this is, if we're going back to the kind of like toolbox analogy, discouraged is like you're deflated; you're a deflated tire. You need something to kind of pump you back up again, get you back to how you run best. But it's difficult when you've had negative experiences, like, these are all often — I’ve got hopeless and insecure in this section, and I want to expand it to include resentful and flooded. But right now, hopeless and insecure where so much is based on baggage of past, you know, perceived failures to meet your own expectations or meet other people's expectations. And you start thinking, "If I’m just going to fail, why do I even try?" And you have this really defeated outlook of it's futile. Like, effort is futile. I’m tired of watching myself fail. I'd rather not start than fail again. 

 

And I think that it can be really challenging and that's one of the things that the book is specifically set up to address, which is we are going to take this slow and if something doesn't work that's okay because this is built on the foundation that I understand that some things aren't going to work or something's, like, nothing is meant to be forever here. And so, the exercises in the discouraged section are a lot closer to — I absolutely put in here a couple times, I’m like, I do not claim to be a therapist. These are not directly, other than this — there's a CBT-ish one with kind of cognitive, like, identifying cognitive distortions. But even at the bottom of that, I’m like CBT is not for everybody. There's a lot of people who aren't a fan. If that is you, that's okay, feel free to skip this activity, you know. 

 

But being able to notice the ruminating negative thoughts, and where did those come from? I’ve got one that's like 'Shutting up scumbag brain' and it's got like the Scumbag Steve meme, like a little brain with glasses. And there's 'What is the negative thought I keep thinking? Who taught me that?' Was it a parent, was it a roommate, was it a teacher? Was it the media, right? Where did I get that, you know, expectation from? And there's some things about, like, stop should-ing all over yourself, right, where it's like let's put all those 'Should' statements and those self-judgments out here.

 

And who's — there's some like insecurity list of like whose judgment am I worried about? Myself, somebody else's? You know, a nameless group of just anybody could potentially judge me for this. And some of my favorite activities that I use are like the self-compassion pep talk which is where I brain dump what's something that's making me upset. Like, "Oh, my God, I always quit hobbies. I bought a bunch of stuff for another hobby and then I quit it. And I always do this, and it's such a waste of money, and I’m so irresponsible, blah, blah, blah." And it looks like a little chat bubble. And then, on the right is a reply, and you pretty much are supposed to write down what you'd tell a friend if your friend texted you this. And so, it's so much easier to be like, "Hey, you know, this stuff doesn't go bad. You love learning. That's like a really great quality to have. Like, you're not afraid to try things, and so many people won't even take that step, you know, you're resilient." 

 

It's so much easier to be compassionate towards other people than it is towards ourselves. And so, being able to kind of take that step back and put a bit of space between ourselves and our thoughts, turning it around, and making us write it out and read our own words back and go, "Dang it, you know, I can't argue with my own advice." And so, I am able to better digest it versus someone else telling me those words because they are kind of like coming from me. So, a lot of that is just working through where that baggage is sort of coming from and then what we can do to feel empowered to help change our own storylines instead of someone else telling us how to change it.
 
 Meg:
Yeah, I love that. I thought about self-compassion a lot as I was looking through your book. Because the act of exploring somebody's barriers to doing something and what might help is profoundly compassionate, right? And we know that children are internalizing the voices of their caregivers, and we don't want them internalizing a critical voice because it's not going to serve them, and being curious about their own experience, and their own needs, and actualizing that in ways that are supportive of them. I do want to circle back to that in a minute when we talk about self-advocacy; but first, I’m sort of just going in order flipping through. In your shout-outs, you thank your Mom and Dad for, quote, 'inventing creative games to help me learn'. I am so curious, Dani, what do you remember about these games? And also, just more broadly, if you have any thoughts about how the ideas in The Anti-Planner can be adapted to support kids, even young kids, who struggle to get things done?
 

Dani:
Excellent. Absolutely. So, my parents are awesome. I feel — all the time, I feel very, very fortunate to have to have the parents that I did because who I am was definitely shaped by attitudes that I got from them growing up which is a lot like feeling empowered to solve your own problems. I think that that's first and foremost. If you're facing something, you have something within you to be able to deal with it, you just have to figure out how. And so, when I was one, my mom told me — I was one-and-a-half, and she was — so, she was pregnant with my brother and was like laying on the couch; very, very pregnant. And we had those alphabet magnets for the fridge that are like Cooper Black font, and I — sorry, I’m such a type nerd. And so, she would tell me, "Go get a T," and I'd run to the, you know, fridge and grab her a T magnet. She'd be like, "Go get me a G," and I'd go and get a G magnet off the fridge.

 

And so, like that was how I learned my alphabet, and I was like not even two yet. And so, that started with this, versus just showing me a picture and be like, "The dog starts with D," you know, kind of a thing. It became a game very early on. My brother, that did not — he didn't, however, that didn't really work for him. He didn't like that as much. So, when it came time for him to learn his ABC’s, he loved baseball. And so, we had a big, long hallway in our house and my parents put up the ABC’s as like little posters on the walls of the hallway. And they had my, you know, gave him like his little teeny bat and they had a little teeny wiffle ball, and they would say, "Which one is a G?" And he would run up and touch the G, and they'd go, "Right!" And he'd go back, and now they'd throw the ball and he'd get to hit the ball. And he got to hit the ball every time he got a letter right. And so, and I remember my dad coming to my kindergarten and showing everyone how to play alphabet baseball. And so, he was interested in that.

 

And then, when I, you know, I had my stepson calling up and I was teaching him his — it was time for him to learn his ABC’s. Now, he was not into baseball and the magnet thing, I don't think was gonna work. But he loves Pokémon, loves Pokémon. And so, what I did for him was I used my iPad and I traced pictures of Pokémon and colored the outlines of that, like, colored the outlines of them with markers because he also has a perfectionistic streak just like me that's like if I can't color these and they don't look right I’m not gonna like it. So, but because of this he was able to color with a marker to find out if it's the right color, go, "Oh, this is the right color," and then filled it in. So, he was like two, two-and-a-half, and his color, like, the coloring on this looked incredible because an adult had done the outlines essentially of it, so he had bumpers almost, but they all looked really great.

So, first off, he felt amazing getting to look at his art that he made. 

 

And then, I had the first letter of each Pokémon in like a big, you know, if it's like Bulbasaur, I'd have the big 'B' and then the little 'b' that's in it kind of like highlighted. And then, I played a bunch of different games with him where I would have little houses and little bent cards and I'd say, "Go discover the Pokémon and come put them in their houses," or we would have a little battle and I'd say, "What do —" you know, he'd have a Golbat and I'd have a Pikachu, and then he'd have to say which one started with what letter. And then, if he got it right, we got to battle. And then, because he knew, he knows all the attacks that Butterfree has, but he's still learning what a G is, which is hilarious, right? Which just goes to show how, you know, his interest is. But he had them down pat. 

 

And so, being able to — and granted, I was very fortunate that summer to be doing freelance work so I had a lot of — I want to acknowledge that I had a lot of free time and that that's not necessarily doable for all parents out there. But the trend here, and it's in the DIY Productivity Strategies in the book, which is how can you take something that your child is interested in and tweak it or adjust it slightly into something that will make them interested in learning about it because their brain is already attracted to that thing.

 Meg:
All the OT’s listening are going, how are you not an occupational therapist? The very core of what we do, and I think it's important especially when we're talking about our Autistic clients' interests — Rachel Dorsey does a good job of pointing this out — if you don't always know what it is about their interests that interests them, so we want to be careful not to, like, you can't necessarily just throw Pokémon stickers on a boring activity if that doesn't get to the heart of why they love Pokémon. But man, the learning opportunities in Pokémon. The Pokémon board game is how my kids learn to add and subtract by tens, and it's how they learned how to use a reference book. Like, it was dictionaries for us when we were kids but the Pokémon, like, the books of all the characters — yeah, the Pokédex, you have to be able to look something up, find the page, and reference that. There's so much opportunity there.

Dani:
It was really helpful. People were like, "Wow I can't believe how above and beyond you went!" I go, I feel grateful because I loved Pokémon. When I was in third grade, I was obsessed with Pokémon, so this is also fun for me. So, I felt very grateful that I was already involved in a world that I was familiar with, so that was again, like, another helpful thing. Can I give one more one more tip for something I’ve worked with him now that he's a little older and fits his way of studying? So, studying. Studying. Oh, my God, studying is so hard. And he came home with his first study guide in fourth grade and it's like all this stuff he has to memorize. And he took the test in school, and he got a — or the pre-test — and he got like a 38. And I looked at the list, you know, because it's all of these like American history battles, and what year did they happen, and what happened I was like I don't remember any of these for what it's worth, right.

 

And so, part of me already is like, God, this is just one of those rote memorization things. Like, it's not like it's not important, and if you go on to have some sort of career that involves battle histories, this may be more relevant. But in fourth grade, they don't even teach you how to take notes. You just have to listen and are expected to remember things. And so, first off, having some compassion when he comes home, and he's got this thing and he's disappointed. And it's like, look, this is good for us to know where you're at so that when we do this again, we're going to be able to see how far you've grown, right. Like, to not come home be like, "What is the matter with you I can't believe you got this terrible, you know, grade. Were you even paying attention and noting?" Like, you guys don't take notes, right, like, how are you expected to just remember this off the go? 

 

But so, what I ended up doing — part of this is because I think I was doing with him from a young age, but he likes art and he likes comedy and comics and stuff like that. And so, what I ended up doing was I would take the list of words that he needed to learn, battles and stuff that he needed to remember, and I would write those down on note cards. And then, on the other side of them, I would flip it over and say, okay, like, how, if you had to remember that, tell me what this is. And so, he'd tell me what it was. And I go, "Cool." And I give it to him and I'd say, "Draw a picture on the backside, draw a picture of that. Like, let's draw what is that going to look like," even if it's weird, right.

 

So, like, for John Adams, he had to draw some stuff going on that was John Adams themed. But then he put like a little atom, like, he drew an atom — like, A-T-O-M — next to it even though that's not how you spell Adams, but the word Adam was he remembered it because he could picture that in his mind.

 

And so, he had certain comics that were like, you know, the characters yelling at each other about the things that they were fighting about in these battles. And he had all of these kind of different comics that he was making that represented these concepts. And so, then what I did was I was like, all right, sweet. I’m going to now mix all these up; I need you to match the word with the comic. And so, then he'd kind of have a matching game of like, okay, let me see if I can put the words with the comics. So, then after he was able to do that, I was like, sweet. And then, I would hold up, I would put those away and I would hold up the picture and ask, "What word is this?" or, "What thing is this, and what is it?" And then, he'd say it and then I'd move all those away and I would just hold up the word. And I'd hold up the word and I'd say, "What is this?" and he was able to do it. And he came home and he got a 98 on his test.

Amazing. Yeah.

So, like, being able to do that. But he thinks in stories like me, and so I absolutely could see where if you can tie it into something that's more memorable because he can picture his own drawing, that really helped him a lot.
 
 Meg:
That's a great example of how a provider could come in and do a whole class activity, too, in a way that's more engaging. I am so over memorizing facts as learning. I was terrible at that and that hasn't mattered at any point in my life other than tests in school. I think we gotta get past that. But I do appreciate your example. And one thing I want to circle back to is you said, "It's also fun for you," and I think that's really key here. Because when we have providers who have less access to authentic joyful play, the kids are going to feel it. Like, your parents were playing too when they were doing that. They were not dutifully, from an empty cup, setting up these activities for you to do. You would feel the dullness and disengagement of that. Kids I think thrive on — we all thrive on shared joyful experience. And so, we enjoy our jobs better when we are actually playing, too. So, I think bringing our spark, our creativity, our ability to play and access joy online is going to make any of this go that much farther.

Dani:
Because you can keep them excited also because they don't feel like you're faking it and like, "Okay, they're just doing this for me." And it's easy to not fake it when you can get excited because you can see that it's working.
 
 Meg:
Yeah, that's a good point, yeah. And many of our neurodivergent kids are going to be pretty hyper-attuned to authenticity and to our nervous system, so they're a good bellwether for are we showing up real in this. Okay, you do a really good job in the book of separating out productivity from self-worth. And on this podcast, we revisit this idea again and again. People matter because they matter. Someone's life isn't worth more because they can meet milestones, or accomplish things, or produce profit for somebody, or because they can do things quickly or efficiently. And with that said, having affirming tools to help us do the things that we could do that are within our capacity, we want or need to do, and removing barriers can be really supportive. So, holding both of those things at once. So, one thing I thought a lot about when I was looking through The Anti-Planner was about self-advocacy. 

 

So, you talked about in this interview and you talk about in the book how to accommodate things that are hard without using shame, without using urgency. I mentioned before that we want our kids to internalize these compassionate, inquisitive, curious voices, not internalized shaming ones, that what they see modeled will become their inner voice and how they talk to themselves. So, all of this is a really important foundation for self-advocacy. For example, being able to say, "I’m having trouble prioritizing what to do first here," I can support someone in asking their partner/classmate/teacher/their boss, "Hey, can you help me look at all these tasks and decide what's most important to do first?" We can't ask that question when we're drowning in shame. But when we have that neutral curiosity, we can. Can you talk a little bit before we wrap up about the relationship between the activities in this workbook, which you can completely do on your own, and self-advocacy which is something that happens between you and other people?
 
 Dani:
Absolutely. And I just, I want to note before I get into it too much, that what you said — the, "Can you help me prioritize this list?" — when I talk to other people about what were the things in the work when I still worked, you know, for an employer that was the most helpful that you found that worked for you, and one of the things was I, in my last job, I was a graphic designer at Gallup. And learning how to, when I had tons of projects on my plate, go into a meeting and with my one-on-ones with my team lead and say, "Hey, this is everything on my plate. Can you help me prioritize so I know what to work on first? Because otherwise, I might just do what's going to be most fun or, you know, what's due first, but there are some things that like might be, you know, need a bunch of rounds of revisions and stuff."

 

And so, after I did that once and it worked once, and I was like, "This is great!" Then I’ve got the foundation to keep doing that over and over again because I know it's something I can ask for and something that will be kind of like provided. And they loved it because then I’m doing better work. Like, it's a win-win situation. And so, they were incentivized to keep spending that time to go over things with me because it made me a better employee. And so, with The Anti-Planner, something that I’ve got at the beginning is this response to a bunch of self-critical thoughts, because I wanted to show people I understand you, I know you, I know the thoughts that are going in your head which are going to be, "I’m just going to fail at this, I’m just going to lose it, I’m going to forget about it, I don't want to write in it because it's too pretty, you know, what if these things don't work," and I understand the concerns. I want to address them head on because you are me, and I am you, and I get it, and I’ve thought of that, and here's my response.

 

And one of them, which was, "I’m going to forget it exists," to which I really talk about how important it is when you have an Anti-Planner to tell other people in your life that you have one and ask if they could remind you that you have one when they hear you talking about how stressed you are, talking about how overwhelmed you are, or burnt out, or how you're trying to get stuff done and you're struggling, so that they can empower you to help solve your own problems instead of feeling responsible for coming up with the solutions which you may reject anyway because they were not your own idea. And so, or because it's not based on your own experience. They might try to give you well-meaning advice, like get a planner that works for them but won't work for you. And then, you're going to get stuck on this discouraged cycle again, versus somebody being like, "Hey, have you checked out your Anti-Planner yet?" 

 

And I’ve talked to a lot of parents who are like, "All I need to do is remind them that they have it," and so then they put it out somewhere they can see it because it's got like a shiny gold foil cover and stuff, and so remembering it exists and having people who are also able, like, asking someone, "Can you remind me that I have this?" is a lot easier than, "Can you help me solve all my problems every time my problems come up?" But then, again, I think that it does strike that balance between supporting someone and not giving them advice that they're going to then not follow and feel discouraged that's like, why do you bother asking me for advice if you're not going to follow it. [Laughs]
 
Meg:
 I love that. I love that. And I want to remind people that, you know, if you think about how it would feel to receive these self-advocacy statements — "Hi, can you help me figure out what on this list is most important to you that I need to do?" — that feels good, right? "Hey, can you remind me when I’m feeling stuck that I have this planner?" That feels good. We love knowing what we can do that will help somebody. "Self-advocacy from children and from people of all ages especially with trauma doesn't always feel polite." I’m quoting Emily Lees here from a really early podcast episode, an Autistic SLP, said, "Self-advocacy doesn't always look polite." But you said, Dani, "When I tried to advocate and it worked the first time it made it easier for me to do it in subsequent times." 

 

When I interviewed Autistic self-advocate Lei Wiley-Mydske, she reminded us that early self-advocacy looks like a child saying 'No' and feeling like you heard them. Not that they can always get their way, but just feeling heard. So, while the end point of all of this might be, "Hi, here's the list of all the things I’ve written down that you'd like for me to do. Can you please help me prioritizing?" The starting point might be 'No' and we're turning towards that with a lot of curiosity, and then moving into all of this creativity. Before we wrap up, Dani, is there anything that you want to add to this conversation or bring us back to?

Dani:
I just, I think the through line with The Anti-Planner and my kind of work in general at this point where I’m like, I don't know, I’m just like a procrastination expert if there is such a thing, which is the reminder that anytime you or someone else is procrastinating, especially chronic procrastinating, there's a reason why and it's not laziness. It's not a character defect, it's not because they just don't care, it's not because they're doing it on purpose, it's not because they like pissing you off; it's not any of those things. There is something in the way, and identifying what that thing is in the way and being able to remove that shame and remove that attachment to the person itself, and instead are able to kind of see it as an, you know, a more neutral task. 

 

So, at the beginning of the book there's actually a 'How to take care of the thing' like story, like, an illustrated little story about how you've got the thing which is whatever nagging tasks you need to get done. It's like a little yellow Post-It note with a face. And that the thing seems scary, right, it might seem boring, it might seem like a nagging thing that's just standing between you and fun, but the thing is like the thing is not any of those things. You are avoiding it because of past negative experiences or fears and all the stuff that is amplifying and making it seem scarier than it is. And it's a distortion. Like, that fear is like a distortion of what really is true, which is that it's a neutral task. And that the book says, like, this task needs this thing, needs help getting to 'Done', and it can't get there on its own. 

 

And so, it's like you can turn boring stuff into games, you can find company to join you along the way, or you can celebrate little victories. Like, you can do all these things to make the journey to 'Done' more enjoyable. And once you start doing that, once you start to frame it through this, like, "If I have to do it anyway, how can I make it suck less so that we can enjoy it a bit more?" And you start to associate being productive with feeling accomplished and fun instead of anxiety and dread. And I kind of said, like, because you're both headed in the same direction, making the same journey, you might as well enjoy the trip. And so, I really think that bringing that, like we said, joy and play back into things that we are expected to do anyways can just like elevate it to another level.

 Meg:
I love that. I love that for everyone. Thank you so much for bringing us back to that. Where can we find you, and The Anti-Planner, and your work online?
 
 Dani:
Oh, yes. So, I am @DaniDonovan on all the things, D-A-N-I-D-O-N-O-V-A-N. And antiplanner.com is where you can check out stuff about The Anti-Planner. I’ve got pdf bundles also on there if a physical book isn't something that you want. Again, I’ve got clean versions. And then, adhddd.com — so, it's ADHD and my initials — is where I’ve got my ADHD comics. I’ve got, you know, ADHD TikToks and stuff like that that's really fun and some stuff about my different talks that I give which is more about like ADHD-centric stuff versus Anti-Planner which is a lot more of this emotional procrastination stuff. So, and then patreon.com/danidonovan.

Meg:
Awesome. Thank you, Dani.

 

Thank you so much.

 [Ending music]
Child: So, it's a C chord for, [singing] "Kids are born to be free." And then, the end part is D7, [singing] "Kids are born to be free." Which one are you gonna put on Mommy's? 
 Person: We don't know. We're gonna figure it out.