Toxic productivity, remembering to remember, and rejection sensitivity (Jesse Anderson’s story)

Jesse Anderson wishes he’d had an ADHD manual when he was first diagnosed as an adult, so he wrote one. Before he was diagnosed, he never considered having ADHD himself. After his wife encouraged him to look into it more, his trouble with remembering to do things, time management, and anger started to take a different shape in his mind.

Today, Jesse is an ADHD advocate, writer, speaker, and author of the book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD. Join host Laura Key and Jesse as they discuss toxic productivity, prospective memory, and the magic of owning a whiteboard. 

Related resources

• ADHD and rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD)

• ADHD and anger

• Jesse’s website, adhdjesse.com

Episode transcript

Jesse: I would get up off the couch and then I would see the whiteboard and be like, "Oh yeah, that's that thing that I said I was going to do, take out the trash." Like the impact was so obvious that like, just by making that small change of the whiteboard instantly it was like, I never forgot. And that helped make it really feel real.

Laura: This is "ADHD Aha!," a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at Understood.org, and as someone who's had my own ADHD "aha" moment, I'll be your host.

I am here today with ADHD advocate, writer, and speaker Jesse Anderson. Jesse, your book "Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD," came out in September of last year. Congrats and welcome to "ADHD Aha!," Jesse!

Jesse: Thank you so much for having me.

Laura: I'm thrilled that you're here. I like to kick things off by asking, when were you diagnosed with ADHD?

Jesse: Yeah, I guess it's been about eight years now, so I was in my mid-thirties when I was diagnosed. You know, I grew up having all the different issues that comes with ADHD and always knew my brain is a little different, but had no idea that it could be ADHD because I believed all the myths.

And then a friend of mine got diagnosed, and his wife and my wife were good friends and they were talking about it. And then my wife came to me and she's like, "You might want to look into this," once she had learned a little bit more about ADHD.

And that sort of started the journey, and pretty quickly, once I started looking at what ADHD actually is and looking at the list of symptoms and stuff like that and reading other people's stories, it was just like, "This is the thing that I didn't know that it's been like this really important factor in my life." So, that started this whole, you know, kind of next chapter of my life in a real way.

Laura: What do you think your wife was noticing? Why do you think she urged you to take a closer look?

Jesse: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of things, just like memory was probably a big one, like committing to things and then forgetting. We had a really big difficulty that kind of came up in our marriage that I didn't really know was happening until after getting diagnosed. We were seeing a therapist that was sort of helping us with this new information. And like, how ADHD affects your marriage, which turns out is a lot.

But one thing, one particular thing was every single night my wife would ask me to take out the trash and I would be, like, sitting on the couch or whatever, and I'd be like, "Yeah, sure, no problem, babe. I'll take care of that as soon as I get up." And as you might guess, I forgot every single night.

But to me, I thought I was going to remember. I wasn't, like, trying to, like, blow her off. I wasn't trying to, like, not do the thing. I thought that I would remember by the time I stood up. But of course, with ADHD we have, you know, our prospective memory like doesn't work very well. And so, remembering to remember later just doesn't really happen. My wife, obviously, because I was doing this, she thought I was just kind of being a jerk.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse: Just like lying to her basically every night telling her I'm going to do this thing and then refusing to do it. So, one thing that really, really helped was our therapist had recommended putting a whiteboard up. So, we did the same sort of thing where she would say, hey, can you take out the trash? And I'd say, yep, no problem. And then she would go to the whiteboard and write "Take out trash" with the little box for me to check.

And then I would get up off the couch, and then I would see the whiteboard and be like, "Oh yeah, that's that thing that I said I was going to do, take out the trash." And then I would do it real quick, so it wasn't a big tat, you know, it took like a minute and then I would check off the box. And that helped make it really feel real to us, I think. It was like, "Oh, this is a real thing." Like the impact was so obvious that like just by making that small change of the whiteboard instantly, it was like, I never forgot. Like when it was on the whiteboard, I would remember every single night.

And then eventually, you know, after months of that, we didn't have to write it on the board anymore. Now it's just part of my nightly routine, and I don't even have to think about it. I just like, I get off the couch, take out the trash, turn off lights, set the alarm, and go to bed. And it's just part of the routine. But it took a long time to build that up.

So, that was kind of one of those things of many that were obvious to my wife. And she didn't know at the time that ADHD was sort of behind a lot of that.

I didn't know that I had any memory issues before I got diagnosed. Like, I knew that I struggled this time. I knew I had like difficulties with anger, and I knew that I was distracted by things. I didn't know it was ADHD, but I kind of knew about those things. But the memory, I had no idea that I had a problem with memory. And if you haven't heard of, and I hadn't heard of this before, prospective memory, it's that idea of remembering to remember later, right?

Laura: Which at first, when you were talking about prospective memory, I thought, did he mean to say working memory? And now I know you meant something different.

Jesse: Yeah. And it's, so it sounds like it's pro like P-R-O like a prospect or prospective memory. It's a tricky word to say.

Laura: Prospective memory.

Jesse: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it's kind of when you would say like, "Oh, I should grab milk on the way home." And then you get in your car and you remember like, "Oh, let's go get the milk now." It's kind of like your own internal like reminder system. But with ADHD like that system doesn't work. But the problem is, even though I know this, I still do that. I still think, "Oh, this is important. I'll remember it." And then I don't.

Laura: How did you remember to remember to look at the whiteboard?

Jesse: Yeah, I mean, it it definitely like just putting up a whiteboard isn't going to magically work for everyone. It just so happened that it was in a really good spot where...

Laura: OK.

Jesse: When I got up the couch and I stood up and turned, it was just like it was right there. So, it was like really in my face. And so, that really worked for us. Like other people maybe you're just going to walk right by the whiteboard and not notice it.

So, maybe for you, like if you're in this scenario, maybe it's like putting a sticky note somewhere else, like maybe you do have the routine of setting the alarm. And so, maybe you put a sticky note right next to the alarm pad. And that's where it says, you know, it's got the little checkbox to take out the trash or whatever that thing is for you.

Laura: I know I'm like, asking for a friend, right?

Jesse: Yeah, exactly. Asking for a friend.

Laura: I'm picturing like, a six by eight-foot whiteboard in my kitchen that I have to literally stumble around in order to remember.

Jesse: Right, right. Just have it like hanging in the hallway, so you have to, like, push it aside to get by.

Laura: Tell me about the shock of realizing that this was ADHD. You said that you were harboring some myths. Tell me about that and why ADHD was such a surprise for you.

Jesse: I think when my wife at first suggested the idea to me, I actually said out loud like "I can't have ADHD because I have no problem focusing on the things that are interesting to me." Which is hilarious if you know about ADHD, because that's kind of the whole thing.

Laura: Right, right.

Jesse: It's like, yeah, when it's interesting, that's really easy for us to kind of hyper-focus on. Like I find hobbies or passions and things like that, and I spend hours in them like very, very focused to the detriment of other things like, you know, family or appointments or all the other important things because that hyper-focus is so strong.

So, that was definitely, finding out about that was a really big "aha" like the hyperfocus that that's a thing. One of the reasons I wrote the book was because I felt like I kept discovering new things, like six months would go by and then I'd find out something else about ADHD, like rejection sensitivity. And I would be like, what? Why did no one told me about this?

I thought I had this, like generic anger problem for so long, I didn't know that it was because of this, like emotional dysregulation or like the way motivation is different. I don't get motivated by rewards and consequences and things that are important. I get motivated by like interest and creativity and novelty.

I didn't hear any of this when I first got diagnosed, and I just kept running into more and more things in my life where I'm like, "This is ADHD too, and oh, this is ADHD too," which is a big reason like writing the book, I was like, this is a book I wish I had gotten on day one.

Laura: One topic that you often talk about is toxic productivity. Can you define what toxic productivity is?

Jesse: Yeah, toxic productivity to me is all of that great-sounding productivity advice out there. The kind of stuff where you read it and you're like, "Oh, that makes a lot of sense." But then you try to do it and then you just fail and fail and fail. A really common productivity advice is this concept of eating the frog first. And so, the frog being that big ugly task that you don't really want to do, I think it's attributed to Mark Twain, the idea of like, if you have to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning and get it out of the way, and then the rest of your day will be a lot easier.

And that's such a great example of toxic productivity advice because that sounds great. Like I hear that and I'm like, "Yeah, that seems like it makes a lot of sense." But then when I try to apply it, it's like the end of the day, I'm still staring at the frog, not eating it, and I didn't get anything else done either.

And so for me, a lot of times when I run into that sort of toxic productivity advice and I find like this, "Oh, this is toxic to me, like, this isn't working for me," then I have to see how can I change it so that it does work for me. And so for me, I've spun that on its head and I say, "Eat the ice cream first." And so, if I have to eat a frog, I'm going to eat the ice cream first and basically sort of build up my motivation momentum.

Like I need to get myself into motion. And then once I'm moving, once I'm getting stuff done, it's a lot easier to tackle that big task because I kind of have that, like it's a little different for everybody, but it's finding those things that, hey, if it doesn't work for you, that's not a sign to feel guilt and shame, which is what my default is. It's more about finding like, what's going to work with your brain. How can I adapt this to work for me?

Laura: So, "toxic" not meaning like that productivity is bad, but that there are ways that we have normalized the idea of productivity as a society that maybe talks to how your brain uniquely works.

Jesse: Yeah, I think the idea is so much of the productivity advice out there feels like "This is the way to fix your day by doing time blocking," or "This is the way to plan a project."

Laura: Bullet journal! I hear about the bullet journal all the time.

Jesse: Totally, totally.

Laura: I'm like "I don't want to do the bullet journal!" Yeah.

Jesse: Yeah, there's so many different things like that where it just feels like people talk about it like it's the answer. And so, when it fails or you, you feel like it's your fault, like something's wrong with you. And that's where the toxic part of it I think comes up, making it sound like it's the only way to do it. And there's so many ways to tackle so much of this stuff.

Laura: Tell me about when you were in the evaluation process. Were you noticing things about your own productivity and experiencing some of these toxic productivity notions?

Jesse: For me, a lot of the productivity stuff I've tried over the years, and I tried so many things, especially like, I guess the early 2000, there was a lot of productivity gurus and stuff happening on the internet, like 43 folders and like bullet journal, I think started sometime back then.

And there was just all these like things like that pushing a lot of this idea of like leaning into productivity and trying to optimize and automate and all these things. And so much of it sounded fun and exciting, and I was trying it. And then I was just feeling like I eventually kind of realized, like, "I'm spending a lot of time building systems and it's not actually helping me get stuff done." And I was like failing at my jobs and things like that.

And like when I got my diagnosis, a lot of that started to become more clear because so many of those systems are built around importance. And so, like, you have a good productivity system, what does it do? It tells you what's important to work on, or it sets up that lets you know kind of what the rewards and consequences are.

And learning that that doesn't really motivate most people with ADHD. Like I know when things are really important, but it doesn't actually give me the motivation to do them. Doctor William Dodson talks about the interest-based nervous system, which is sort of this idea that most people are importance-based. But with ADHD, you're interest-based, which means what motivates you is interest, novelty, creativity, challenge, and urgency.

And I kind of reframe that, in my book I call it "The four Cs of motivation," which is just Captivate, Create, Compete, Complete. And so, Captivate is like making it interesting, like, how can I make this task interesting so that'll motivate me to get it done?

And Create is about creativity and novelty because most people with ADHD like creativity is very motivating. Like, I love brainstorming new ideas because I'm creating new things like that's really motivating and easy to do.

The third one, Compete, that's about finding that challenge that's going to really push you forward. I remember being in like certain classes and a teacher would like write a problem on the board at the beginning of the year and then say, like, "No one in the last three years has been able to solve this." And then now I'm like, "I'm not doing anything else in this class, but trying to solve that problem because that challenge is like exciting to me. I'm going to take that on."

Laura: So, it's like a challenge. It's not necessarily about competing with a peer or something like that.

Jesse: Yeah, for some people that competition is how it works for them, especially like in sports and things like that. There's people with ADHD that really thrive in that environment because the direct competition like really, yeah, really motivates them and kind of inspires them.

Laura: Jesse was laughing because I raised my hand about the sports thing because I was, volleyball, basketball. I, really, I was so driven by that. But go on.

Jesse: Oh, nice. And then the last one, Complete, is just kind of that urgency and like due dates, deadlines, the big important project. Like I would avoid it all year, but then like the night before it was due, I would fly into action. And suddenly I had all this motivation energy and I could get a ton of work done on the paper in that moment because of that urgent energy that kind of comes with that imminent deadline.

Laura: So, motivation being a big hurdle potentially for productivity for people with ADHD. For you, distractions? What about distractibility?

Jesse: Yeah, distractions is definitely big. A lot of it, I think, comes down to figuring out like priorities. My problem is I always have 20 priorities. I have all these things that I want to do, and they all seem really important. And that becomes difficult because I want to say yes to everything. Like every exciting opportunity, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna do that."

And then it just makes it impossible to do anything because I'm distracted while I'm working on one thing, I'm thinking about, "Oh, I could work on this and I could go do that and I could go do this." I'm thinking about all these other things.

This is the "ADHD Aha!"podcast, I don't know. Yeah, I'm just kidding.

Jesse: Right. Yeah, exactly. So, like distraction is definitely big. I've found there's actually a really great exercise I do just kind of every few weeks. And I basically will write down 20 goals, like what are the things I'm trying to work on right now?

Laura: 20 goals? Wait, 20 goals?

Jesse: Well, that's kind of, so that, exactly that's the idea. Like once I start writing them down, like "These are a lot of things I'm trying to do. This is crazy. Like 20 is way too many for me to do." So, but then the exercise you go through that and you're like, "OK, what are the five absolute most important?" And so, you go through that and then you circle the five that are the most important. And it's like cool. And I have the top things you should focus on.

And then the rest of the list is the things you should avoid at all costs. They're not secondary priorities. These are the distractions. And that really helps me like find like, "Oh, I said that I wanted to work on this course, but instead I'm spending all this time on this other thing that isn't in my top five." It's the thing I have to avoid at all costs.

When I'm feeling distracted, I can look at the list and be like, "Oh, this is a thing I'm not supposed to touch. I should not be looking at this project at all right now." That's one I recommend a lot. Just run through it and try it once, and then I think it'll make a really big impact. That's been huge for me.

Laura: Another one, and you're going to tell by the way that I'm asking these questions that I've consumed some of your content potentially, but I know motivation is a potential hurdle, distractions is a potential hurdle, and then overwhelm. I think that's one of them that you've talked about as well. Tell me through a personal example how overwhelm has gotten in the way for you.

Jesse: Yeah, overwhelm is wild. I feel like I, like I mentioned, like for me it's really easy to think of like 20 goals because I think of it like juggling chainsaws. I'm like always like trying to make it kind of like exciting.

Laura: That's twisted man.

Jesse: If I'm not juggling enough chainsaws, like, I feel like everything is going to like, collapse. I'm going to get too bored with everything, and then I'll just sort of drop everything. I wouldn't suggest this. Like, I wouldn't say it's necessarily the healthiest way to do it, because the bad side is if you get too many chainsaws going and then you're like, that's where like the burnout happens and overwhelm and then you like, can't do anything because it's just like overbearing.

And I kind of feel like I'm always trying to keep burnout at a distance, but not too far, because then I'll just like, sink into like, I'm just going to play video games every night because I can't get anything done. Like I just sort of lose interest in everything.

Laura: Like an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Yeah.

Jesse: Yes, yeah, very all or nothing. Like I feel like I have to keep some level of energy going. And my wife, she's neurotypical. She does not understand this at all. So, I'll tell her, like, "I feel like I'm getting a little bit bored with the stuff that I'm working on right now, and I don't want to be bored with that. So, I feel like I need to add one more new, exciting thing and then that'll help like all the things," which I know is counter to the idea I just talked about with like finding your priorities.

But like that for me is that tricky balance. It's like maintaining a level of energy in that energy is going to kind of propel me forward. You know, it's like the movie "Speed," which I guess I'm dating myself. That's like 30 years old now.

Laura: I know every quote from that movie, so let's go.

Jesse: Right. But that, like, that's where I feel like I can't, I can't go slower than 50 miles.

Laura: Can't go under 50 miles. Yeah. Gotcha.

Jesse: Yeah. I got to keep it going. Because if it goes under then it's all over. Again, not recommended, but that's definitely what works for me. Juggling the chainsaws.

Laura: I want to go back to your wife for a minute because she, I imagine she experiences this energy from you, "I get things done," and yet you weren't taking out the trash, right?

Jesse: Yeah.

Laura: What else? Like, tell me more about that.

Jesse: Again, like ADHD and marriage makes things really tricky, especially undiagnosed ADHD, when you don't even know that it's there. Because there's so many...like, I'm great at starting new things and having new ideas and all that sort of stuff. I'll often have like a new business idea, and be like, boom! And then it like works out, like things go well, and yet I'm not taking out the trash.

Or I'm like forgetting important things for like, the kids. We have three kids and they all, all three of them have ADHD. So, my poor wife is just like managing chaos in our household.

Laura: What are their ages, Jesse?

Jesse: My oldest, she's 13 and she's very much like me. Like we connect, like very similar personality, very similar type of ADHD. And then we have two boys, my middle child, he is 11 and then our youngest is seven. And I might be wrong on one of those ages because I'm not good with numbers.

Laura: All three diagnosed with ADHD?

Jesse: So, the two oldest are diagnosed. Our youngest hasn't officially been diagnosed, but it's so obvious, we know.

Laura: Yeah. OK. Wow, that's a that's a wild house, I imagine. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Jesse: Totally. Yes. There's a lot of energy in our household. Like, our dinners are a little bit crazy. Our boys definitely match the stereotype of not being able to sit in their seat. So, they're just like, especially our middle child, he's doing like, stand-up comedy almost every night. He just like, gets out of his seat and he's telling jokes and moving around and we're like, "Just sit in the seat for like a minute so you can get some dinner in."

Laura: Put some food in your mouth. Yeah.

Jesse: Yeah, yeah, it's a hoot. They're fun. They're kind of all over the place. But yeah, my wife definitely does a lot to sort of keep things organized and sort of manage the schedules. That and I highly recommend, I imagine a lot of people to do this, but having like shared calendars and like digital calendars, that really helps a lot because she'll tell me about stuff that's coming up, and then I'll think that I'm going to remember it and then I don't. But it's always in our calendar and we use that as sort of like, that is the absolute truth, whatever we have in that calendar.

And so, I can always reference that, like, my son has a baseball game tonight and I might have forgotten, but it's in the calendar. So, I keep seeing it all day every time I glance at the calendar. And so, my wife, I give her so much credit because she makes a lot of that stuff happen while I'm doing a lot of my crazy business ideas.

Laura: How do you talk about ADHD with your kids?

Jesse: It's so interesting doing that because I'm trying to, like my parents did the best they could, not knowing, but they didn't know. And so, I have like a lot of like things that I was like, "Well, I wish that had been different." And so, it's tricky navigating that with my kids, because I want to make sure that they're well informed and they know it's not like something's wrong with you. You're just like different.

And so it's really cool hearing them say that back. And so, my daughter in particular is like really good at just like seeing the best in everybody and seeing like how it's awesome that we all have different brains and how interesting and fun it is seeing how different people's brains work in different ways.

And so, I hope we're doing a good job, just really sort of like embracing it. And we talk about it a lot and it helps that I have it. And so, we can again, like I mentioned, my daughter and I like are really bonded and really sort of get each other. And that helps a lot because her and my wife, her mom, like they sometimes it doesn't make sense. So, like my daughter would do something and my wife will be like, not to her but like later to me, and like "Why in the world would she do that?"

And I have some insight into that. I'm like, "Well, I can kind of understand it because she's thinking from this perspective." And so, it's been really interesting trying to do the best to like, embrace it like that while also having to navigate, like, for example, my daughter, she struggles in the morning getting to school on time, which is something I was late pretty much every day of my entire school career.

And she had been late enough times that they said, "Oh, she's going to have to do detention during school." And I was like, "This is, no way. I'm not letting like, this happened to me and I'm not letting this happen." So, we had to make all sorts of calls and talk to lots of people. And to the school's credit, they had their policy, but they were open to like conversation with us. But she's not going to be sitting in detention during lunch for something that's not her fault.

Laura: Is it hard not to project how you feel like your experience with ADHD onto your kids?

Jesse: I think it helps that all of my kids have it. Like if it was just one child that had it, I think I might have more difficulty with that. But I can already see so much diversity just with the way they think. Like they're very, very different. They do not have the same brand of ADHD.

Like I said, my son's like making jokes and dancing around, whereas my daughter is much more, she is like the distracted and kind of quieter and like doing lots of art and stuff like that. They are very different personalities and so that helps. That helps me not try to put too much of a label on them based on my own experience with ADHD.

Laura: Earlier you mentioned rejection sensitivity and you mentioned anger. I don't know if those two are related or if they were separate thoughts.

Jesse: Oh, definitely related.

Laura: Could you unpack that? Would you be open to talking about that?

Jesse: Yeah, I kind of struggle to talk about it a little bit because a lot of the ADHD symptoms or experiences I've had, I feel like it's easy to sort of be open and be like, "Oh, I'm late to a lot of things. And like that sort of stinks, but it's because I struggle with time or whatever." But anger feels like something wrong with me, and I really, it just feels so negative because before I knew about rejection sensitivity, I just knew that I could get angry. Like just like a snap of a finger, like, feel totally fine and then having a conversation, and then it was like something would spark in my brain that would just be like, so angry.

Laura: Oh, give me an example.

Jesse: Oh, man. One thing that happened after I learned about rejection sensitive dysphoria, my wife and I had both watched a video about it, and so we were aware of like, "Oh, that's this thing." And for me, it feels like withdrawing of love or withdrawing of acceptance. Betrayal, actually. That's what I was looking for.

And so, I was having — I don't remember the conversation — but my wife and I were having some sort of discussion that was lightly heated or whatever, and she said something and that felt like betrayal. It felt like just like stabbed in the chest. And I felt that internal feeling that happens with that rejection sensitivity where it's just like, "I want to explode. Like I want to yell and get big and loud."

Like internally, when that happens, it feels justified. It feels like I'm responding in kind to what the situation demands or whatever. Like that's what it feels like in the moment. And knowing, like having learned about rejection sensitivity, doesn't make that feeling go away.

Laura: Right. Of course not.

Jesse: It's not like I'm "Oh, it's just this thing. And so, I don't need to get mad. "It's like I still feel all that really intense energy inside of me. But thankfully, because we had learned about like rejection sensitive dysphoria, I was able to say to my wife in that situation, like basically through gritted teeth, but I was like, "I think I'm feeling that rejection sensitive dysphoria thing. Can we take a break? Because otherwise I'm going to say something I'm going to regret or like something like, that's going to happen."

And we did. So, she was like, "Yeah, let's take a break." She went off somewhere else. And then I felt it cooling off. And then another trick that, like the therapist who had been seeing what she had said, "When that happens, something to ask yourself is, does it make sense? Like, given all of my history, like with my wife, does it make sense that right now she would be purposefully trying to betray me the way that I feel?" And once I was able to cool off a little bit and then evaluate it from that, I was like, "No, like, it doesn't make sense at all. The way I feel doesn't add up."

Laura: Right.

Jesse: Yeah.

Laura: But even just putting the brakes on it is something that people with ADHD struggle with to begin with. So, that's a skill to be learned. It's that like half a second.

Jesse: Yeah, yeah. And I know, Doctor Richard Barkley, he talks about the idea of literally putting your hand in front of your mouth before you respond to something.

Laura: Oh, I've never heard that.

Jesse: And like, that that can give you just like a little pause of time to sort of, like, be able to reflect on what's happening inside of you. And I found that to be really effective, because if I feel that kind of emotional switch that happens internally, just putting that hand up in front of the mouth or like just saying like, let me think about it or something to give you a little bit of space. That space can make a huge difference.

Laura: Well, Jesse, I'm so glad that you came on today. Congrats again on the book. And the book is called "Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD." I'm so grateful that you came on the show today, Jesse. Thank you.

Jesse: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast. So yeah, the book "Extra Focus." It's that book that I wish I'd gotten when I'd gotten diagnosed, and it's got tons of strategies and, other great advice in there as well. So, I think it's, a lot of people have really enjoyed it, and I think your listeners will as well.

Laura: And they have to remember to remember to remember.

Jesse: Yeah, write it down now, like set a reminder. Exactly.

Laura: Thanks for listening. As always, if you want to share your own "aha" moment, email us at ADHDAha@understood.org. I'd love to hear from you. Be sure to check out the show notes for this episode. We have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org. And if you like what you hear, help us continue this work by donating at Understood.org/donate.

"ADHD Aha!" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli. Jessamine, are you there?

Jessamine: Hi everyone. I'm still here.

Laura: And Margie DeSantis.

Margie: Hey, hey.

Laura: Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Creative and production leadership from Scott Cocchiere and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Laura Key. Thanks so much for listening.