“What unfinished task 😱 is still hogging your mental real estate and needs to be let go?”

Clear n.d.

You’ve likely heard it before. People who live with invisible disabilities, like ADHD, have brains that are wired differently. Planning, organisation, initiation, self-monitoring and response control all take up mental capacity. What a neurotypical deems as a quick win, may leave a neurodiverse person overwhelmed and unable to complete a task.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been healing from chronic overwhelm and pursuing the reason why, for my entire life, certain tasks hog all the mental real estate (like folding the washing). Turns out, I live with ADHD. It’s not something I need to hide, either. There’s positives to ADHD that can be overlooked by employers:

• I can hyper focus and get large volumes of work done in a shorter space of time. Which is why I prefer compressed work schedules (hello 0.8EFT🙌🏻) and the flexibility to work from home.
• I’m compassionate, gritty and resilient – likely made possible from a lifetime of social awkwardness and rejection sensitive dysphoria (the literal feeling of physical pain when rejected)!
• I’m a people person 🙌🏻 and this is why stakeholder engagement and previously co-founding a hospitality business comes naturally.
• I’m empathic, generous and congruent. What you see is what you get.
• I think differently. Often in the form of complex mind maps and Venn diagrams 😬 I thrive through visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles.
• Creativity is omni-present – whether it’s cooking, writing, learning, designing or researching, I’m always finding ways to solve a problem.
• Contagious enthusiasm… for things I’m passionate about: community engagement, learning design, studying, writing, research, design, food, art, music, nature… which is why the washing is never folded in our house 😬

Over to you: what’s one thing that hogs your mental real estate, regularly, that you want to surrender?