The ADHD Skills Lab

How much time should you spend making a decision? Two minutes? Four hours? Three weeks?

When you have ADHD, it's not always obvious which decisions deserve your attention and which ones you should just make and move on from.

In Wednesday's episode, Skye and Robbie explored the research behind ADHD, maximizing, and regret. Today, they're getting practical.

Skye shares a decision-making method she's taught for five years: **decide how wrong you can afford to be before deciding how much time to spend.**

A dinner choice might allow a 50% margin of error. A software investment might allow 25%. A major career decision might need 10%. Each gets a different amount of time, so you're not treating every choice like it could change your life.

What We Cover:

- How to decide whether a choice deserves minutes, hours, or weeks
- The margin of error method: 50%, 25%, and 10% decisions
- Why blocking time for decisions works better than thinking about them whenever you get a spare minute
- How to stop comparing options endlessly and test them instead
- Why a deadline matters just as much as the time you allow
- How to make the call with the information you have and stop second-guessing yourself
Want to grow your business with ADHD?

You can use my free focus filter to manage overwhelm and organize yourself and your team:  https://tinyurl.com/focus-filter

Looking for an ADHD business mentor who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain?

Book a call and let's assess you're business to see if you're a fit: https://tinyurl.com/book-a-call-uo

Someone says "we need to talk" and your ADHD brain immediately assumes you're in trouble. Even when you've done nothing wrong.

Maybe you've dealt with a boss who constantly singled you out, colleagues who excluded you, or feedback that felt more like a personal attack than a conversation about your work. You probably called it a toxic workplace. But what if there was more going on?

Brooke Schnittman is the founder of Coaching With Brooke, a bestselling author, and an ADHD coach with more than 20 years of experience. After experiencing bullying herself, she conducted an international survey to explore how adults with ADHD experience bullying at work, in relationships, and within their families.

In the first round of her Adult ADHD Bullying Survey, 63% of respondents reported experiencing workplace bullying. Brooke explains how ADHD traits can be treated as character flaws, why some adults struggle to recognize bullying when it happens, and how years of being told they're too sensitive can affect their confidence and willingness to speak up.

She also shares her own experience of being shouted at by a boss in front of colleagues, what she said the following morning, and why you don't have to find the perfect words in the moment to stand up for yourself.

What We Cover

- How to recognize workplace bullying when it looks like ordinary criticism or a difficult boss
- What Brooke's survey revealed about bullying among adults with ADHD
- Why ADHD traits can be mistaken for character flaws or unprofessional behavior
- How past experiences affect confidence, boundaries, and speaking up
- Four practical steps for responding without having to confront someone on the spot

Connect With Brooke Schnittman
- Website: coachingwithbrooke.com
- Book: Activate Your ADHD Potential https://www.coachingwithbrooke.com/activatebook
- Podcast: SuccessFULL With ADHD
- 3C Activation coach training http://3cactivation.com/
Want to grow your business with ADHD?

You can use my free focus filter to manage overwhelm and organize yourself and your team:  https://tinyurl.com/focus-filter

Looking for an ADHD business mentor who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain?

Book a call and let's assess you're business to see if you're a fit: https://tinyurl.com/book-a-call-uo

With ADHD, "just wait until later" can feel impossible. Buy it now. Switch to the fun thing now. Say it now. And when you give in to the impulse, it's easy to blame yourself for not trying harder.
In this special episode of the ADHD Skills Lab, Skye Waterson shares a conversation from the ADHD Channel for Women by Understood.org. Host Cate Osborn speaks with Dr. Polaris Koi, an assistant professor of practical philosophy at the University of Turku who researches ADHD, self-control, and decision-making, and has ADHD themselves.
Together, they explore why impulse control isn't just about willpower. Polaris explains how adding friction, removing temptations, and changing your environment can make impulsive actions easier to manage. They also challenge the idea that self-control works like a muscle and discuss how anxiety and self-blame can make things harder.
Cate shares her experience with compulsive shopping, while Skye reflects on the urgency of wanting something right now, even when you know waiting might be better.
No "just wait." No trying harder for the sake of it. No silver bullet.
What We Cover
Why waiting can be so difficult with ADHD
How adding friction can help with impulsive decisions
What the marshmallow experiments reveal about temptation
Why willpower isn't simply a muscle you can strengthen
How self-blame and anxiety affect impulse control
Listen to more episodes of the ADHD Channel for Women from Understood.org:
https://lnk.to/adhdchannelforwomenFD!theadhdskillslab
Want to grow your business with ADHD?

You can use my free focus filter to manage overwhelm and organize yourself and your team:  https://tinyurl.com/focus-filter

Looking for an ADHD business mentor who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain?

Book a call and let's assess you're business to see if you're a fit: https://tinyurl.com/book-a-call-uo

With ADHD, you can spend three days researching a $50 purchase, finally make the decision, and still wonder if you chose wrong. Meanwhile, the important stuff isn't getting done. 
Skye and Robbie Waterson unpack a 2012 study from the Journal of Attention Disorders on ADHD, decision making, and regret. The research found that higher ADHD symptom scores were linked to more maximizing, the drive to find the best possible option, and more regret afterward. They explore why trying to avoid the wrong decision can leave you feeling worse even when you make a good one, and how that same pattern can quietly stall progress in your business.
What We Cover:
Why ADHD can turn a simple purchase into days of research and second-guessing
How maximizers can get better outcomes but feel less satisfied with their decisions
Why trying to avoid regret can actually create more of it
How overthinking small decisions steals time from the work that moves your business forward
Why setting limits on time, money, and acceptable mistakes can make decisions easier
What the research can and cannot tell us about ADHD and decision making
Want to grow your business with ADHD?

You can use my free focus filter to manage overwhelm and organize yourself and your team:  https://tinyurl.com/focus-filter

Looking for an ADHD business mentor who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain?

Book a call and let's assess you're business to see if you're a fit: https://tinyurl.com/book-a-call-uo

If you have ADHD (and especially if you run your own business), you probably know this cycle: push hard to hit a deadline, get it done, then do the same thing next week. It works often enough that you keep relying on it, until the week it doesn’t and you’re running on nothing.
Dr. Tracey Marks is a board-certified psychiatrist with more than 25 years of clinical experience. Skye and Tracey talk about why pushing through is so hard to give up and what it costs your attention and energy over time.
Tracey’s main point: recovery only works when it matches what drained you in the first place.
In this episode:
Why pressure you put on yourself as a business owner hits differently than pressure from a boss
How to tell whether you’re socially or cognitively drained, and what helps each one
Tracey’s baseline for sleep, food, and movement (including her own bedtime routine)
How to build a small set of anxiety tools that work for you and keep them within reach
Listen in if you’ve been running low for a while and keep telling yourself it’s just a busy season.
Find Tracey
 Website: https://markspsychiatry.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drtraceymarks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraceymarks
Want to grow your business with ADHD?

You can use my free focus filter to manage overwhelm and organize yourself and your team:  https://tinyurl.com/focus-filter

Looking for an ADHD business mentor who's also an operator who'll turn your business into a finely-tuned profit and peace machine designed for your brain?

Book a call and let's assess you're business to see if you're a fit: https://tinyurl.com/book-a-call-uo