it's 6:00 p.m. you just got back home and you've got a task that have been lingering in your mind waiting to be checked off your list it could be a project for work or school house chores that can't be ignored any longer or maybe it's about spending quality time with your loved ones the intentions are there but so is the overwhelming sensation of having too much on your plate you realize that you have a deadline due date tomorrow you sit down their mind to start but then distractions begin a quick glance at your phone turns into a deep diet through social media a video binge on YouTube or maybe just staring into space lost in thoughts before you know it time has slipped away you find yourself cooking a meal taking an unplanned nap getting lost in small less important Tas anything but the main thing you intended to do this is the cycle of procrastination and it's not just about being lazy when you're feeling like lazy you're more likely to just lounge around instead of filling your time with less important activities but why do we procrastinate even when it feels bad and more importantly how can we break free from it everyone procrastinates sometimes and there are several reasons behind that just because you procrastinate it doesn't mean automatically that you have ADHD ADHD procrastination is different than normal procrastination and it's more extreme we will get into the difference of ADHD procrastination and normal procrastination pretty soon but before that we need to understand the common reasons for procrastinations even if you don't have ADHD most common reason why you're procrastinating is because you're overwhelmed this isn't just about the volume of tasks but also about their complexity or maybe the emotional weight when we are overwhelmed it becomes difficult to know where to start what to do and it leads to procrastination everyone talks about task management but in my opinion energy management is far more important than getting everything done I used to think being constantly busy and getting getting more done was the answer for success and fulfillment in life but I completely disagree now we don't get satisfied when we finish everything on our to-do list we get satisfied when we work on what truly matters how can we make sure that we focus on what truly matters I use a method called daily highlight and Eisenhower metric every day when I wake up I open my notion template kaisen system and I set my daily highlight even if I procrastinate the whole day I make sure to get my daily highlight done and when I set my daily highlight I'm more intentional and also focused with my time and I might have a shitty day but if I get my daily highlight done I usually feel satisfied and fulfilled for the day there are three ways to pick your daily highlight urgency what's the most pressing thing I have to do today if you have something that absolutely must be accomplished today make it your highlight two satisfaction at the end of the day which highlight will bring me most satisfaction maybe you have a particular thing you wanted to to try out for a long time you know picking a daily highlight for satisfaction helped me break the someday cycle when I reflect on today what will bring me the most Joy not every hour has to be optimized at the end of the day our goal is just to be happy it can be anything like reading a book at a cafe hanging out with a friend or maybe just going for a silent walk some days my daily highlight is based on urgency some days it's joy and some days it's satisfaction A good rule of thumb is to choose a highlight that that takes around like 60 to 90 minutes choosing my daily highlight according to these three criteria helps me focus on what truly matters for today but to manage the broader spectrum of tasks and responsibilities I use the Eisenhower Matrix and because my ADHD brain is so bad at prioritizing it has helped me so much with the Eisen hover metric basically you organize the tasks based on their urgency and importance so you can effectively prioritize your most important work we are going to divide tasks B based on their urgency and importance urgent and important may seem like similar words but understanding the difference between the two is crucial urgent tasks require your immediate action so those have like clear deadlines important tasks will bring you closer to your goals based on this we divide all the tasks into four quadrants quadrant one is do you'll place any tasks that are both urgent and important these are the things with clear deadlines and consequence for not taking immediate action so let's say finishing a last minute deadline is assigned to you or let's say your sink spring leaks and your whole kitchen float into water so this is quadrant one quadrant one tasks are inevitable there should be no question about which tasks fall into this quadrant because these are the tasks that are at the front of your mind and are likely stressing you the most spending too much time on quad one task leads to stress burnout and the sense that your day is out of your control TR I found myself yesterday crying in a shower for literally no reason that's why we make time for the quadon 2 schedule not urgent but important tasks are the activities that help you achieve long-term goals these might not have a deadline so it's easy to put them off in favor of more urgent tasks for example exercising socializing learning a new skill or maybe a hobby or maybe more traveling you will tackle these tasks right after you tackle the tasks in quadrant one this is a sweet spot of time management and this is kind of like a spot where you're focused on problems but also on opportunities and also on growth that's why every single week on Sunday I try to do my weekly reflection using my Kaizen system because it automatically tells you based on the task inputs you've done during the week how much time you've spend on each quadrant and what to do the next quadrant is delegate where you will put any tasks that are urgent but not important these are the things that needs to be done but don't require your specific skills or or affect your long-term goals like getting the groceries or cleaning your house like booking flights if you have the choice invest money on delegating 2 by time so that you can focus more on quadrant 2 if you can't delegate these tasks try to keep them from taking over your day save quadron three tasks four times when you are low in energy rather than putting them first in the morning so do them at the end of the day and don't spend your most precious time here try to batch them all together and have just like a Sprint of time where you do these quadrant three once you've gone through your to-do list and added to the first three quadrants you will notice that some tasks are left over the tasks left over are the tasks that were urgent or important place these remaining items onto your to list in the fourth quadrant which is delete these unimportant non-urgent distractions are simply getting in the way of you accomplishing your goals when you're planning your tasks with the Kaizen system that my team and I build from scratch specifically for my 8 vhd brain so that I won't lose my mind and function properly you can easily add tasks on the go and categorize it according to the quadrant you have a feature that syncs all the tasks and shows automatically how much time you spend in each quadrant and based on that it will give feedback what to do for the next week if you're interested into my Kaizen system check the link in the description below before talking about the difference between ADHD and procrastination let's have a good understanding of what ADHD is ADHD is a term that described a way of being in the world it's neither entirely a disorder nor entirely an asset it's an array of traits specific to a unique kind of mind ADHD is a curse and a gift at the same time ADHD brains are built to jump from idea to idea hobby to hobby sensation to sensation you know we can't do nothing I sometimes have a hard time when shutting my brain off when it's time to sleep because ideas never stop in my brain all these video ideas thumbnail ideas you know the things that I want to do never stops and people with ADHD often embody contradictions we might struggle with Focus but then suddenly lock into a state of hyperfocus one moment I'm pouring hot water for coffee and necks I've accidentally spilled it on my hand and burn it a couple of weeks ago some common signs of ADHD are here there's so many silly things that we do because of ADHD we get anxious from Cal n and we are late to meetings because we got zoned out while standing outside of the conference room or we go down rabbit Halls on the internet instead of our doing our work and we have time blindness we just don't have a sense of time when we're doing something we enjoy our passes by and I don't even recognize that I got hungry you don't have to be hyperactive to have ADHD hyperactivity is usually seen in males and kids ADHD in females especially in female adults is quite different an important question to determine whether you have a normal procrastination or ADHD is to ask yourself how long have you had these problems if you think about how long you've been struggling to manage your time to concentrate and to control your impulses for example when I was trying to walk past through my school entrance I literally hit my head to the wall because I didn't see it would you say it's been just weeks or months or more like years picture yourself as a child were you dealing with any of the same problems then do you remember also having trouble sitting in school completing your homework or maybe finishing a hobby project following the rules on a playing field making it keeping friends in your neighborhood according to the book taking charge of adult ADHD having sudden short-term symptoms usually mean it's not ADHD not having any ADHD symptoms at a child or as a teen probably does mean you don't have ADHD ADHD like symptoms that arouse only in adulthood or that haven't been going for a very long time are probably being caused by something else like extreme stress or maybe other mental issues in many clinical studies 98% of the patient symptoms started before the age 16 it's also important to remember that normal procrastination often times don't include the things that we enjoy I got diagnosed with ADHD and sometimes I even procrastinate eating or just going to the toilet I'm super hungry and the food is in front of me and I stare at it and I don't eat it I procrastinate why I don't know people with ADHD aren't crazy or dumb even though we sound like that just like people who need glasses to see clearly aren't dumb or crazy or lacking you know just like they need glasses people with ADHD need adaptations that supports them ADHD symptoms can't be fixed but it can be reduced by making adaptations you need to take care of your sleep diet exercise bad habits and you might need to get professional help too I will make more detailed videos about the each part but to manage all these you need a good system I get asked so often how are you so disciplined and goal driven with ADHD I'm not disciplined okay I literally have the selfcontrol of like a three-year-old last night even though I have this deadline I've spent 6 hours on playing on a game even though I thought myself I will stop after 10 minutes but I didn't I'm not disciplined I just have a good system I've tried bunch of apps in services that were labeled ADHD friendly for years but none of them could solve my problems so I've decided to combine all the methods that I use daytoday to manage this chaotic brain and I sat down with a developer again and again and again and created my own system and it's called Kaizen system Kaizen means the act of continuous Improvement in Japanese it really highlights the function of this template and it's also my life Moto that's why it's the channel Banner in the template I guide you how to to set your goals correctly according to the psychology so that you will struggle less with motivation we go through the goal checklist to make sure you don't fall into the common goal setting pitfalls and after that we set a micro commitment that you will do every day to achieve this goal don't be scar when you hear the word every day we set the micr commitments so easy so that even with ADHD you can stay consistent I use micr commitment method to establish the habit of working out my brain never shuts up and my thoughts are constantly crossing my mind and I'm also scared of forgetting something for those times we have a section called brain dump where you can declutter your mind by jotting whatever crosses your mind you can always revisit them and turn them into tasks so that you won't forget anything they categorize the tasks based on their urgency and importance so that we know exactly what to do in that given moment even though I've been using eyes and how matric for years I always forget which quadrant was which one and what I'm supposed to do so we have a visual representation for that to reduce distractions and get to know your procrastination patterns better we have a section where you estimate how much time you will spend on a toask and compare with the reality you don't need to do this every single time but when I do this I'm more intentional and it also improved my sense of time a lot I used to think it takes me around like 2 hours to write a script in reality I just realize that it takes me 5 hours no wonder why I'm always trying to catch up with my deadline and people with ADHD tend to have perfectionism and we blame ourselves a lot and sometimes we procrastinate because we're perfectionists I don't know if you're into this mbti thing but my mbti personality is intj and I like planning but my ADHD is driving me nuts and I hated myself for a long time for not acting the way that I want myself to act and that's why I started to do weekly or bi-weekly because sometimes I forget Reflections so that I set a realistic expectation to myself and identify the patterns of procrastinations I have the template automatically calculates how much time you spent in each quadrant of the Eisenhower metrix and tells you what to do for the next week based on these feedbacks you can rearrange your schedule and be more realistic for the next week you'll be also able to reflect on your micro commitment so that if you weren't able to be consistent last week you can adjust the important thing that I learned about having ADHD is having a system that allows you to fail because you will fail like I promise at least from my personal experience I always fail but failing is fine with the time dealing with ADHD is kind of like developing a muscle the more you understand yourself and your patterns you will be able to be more realistic and also be less frustrated with yourself obviously it's not a cure about having a system that works for you is crucial and I'm so sorry for talking about my notion template over and over and over again but I genuinely think it's really good and I'm so proud of it and I wish we have created it much earlier so that I wouldn't have lost my mind and got angry to myself every single day adhc or not if traditional methods of productivity didn't work for you my kaisen system might work it designed by a person with ADHD me who gets you for you because these are the things that I struggle every single day and I have big goals for not only offering a notion template but also when you get the Kaizen system you will get access to the community of people who have the similar issues like you and you will also get access to lessons and courses by me that dives deep into ADHD and how to deal with these issues scientifically and also my personal tips and also we're doing a crazy Black Friday sale so if you're interested take it out from the link in description I really like it and I think you will like it too if you found this video helpful I'm sure you will find this comprehensive video about ADHD helpful too