Episode 02 · 31:52
Dyslexia & ADHD Hacks: Tools to Boost Productivity
Dan and Tom share practical ways technology helps them work with dyslexia and ADHD rather than constantly fighting their own brains. They cover dictation, reminders, task categories, focus tools and the self-knowledge required to choose between them.
The goal is not to optimise every trait away, but to reduce avoidable friction and leave more attention for strengths, relationships and meaningful work.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Externalise memory and sequencing when holding them internally consumes too much attention.
- Group tasks by the kind of energy they require, not only by project.
- Choose a tool for one recurring friction before building a complex productivity system.
- Self-knowledge turns an accommodation into a repeatable working method.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
Hello so I guess we're back in recording to kick us off you know what they should do is um because obviously we're not editing this it's one of those things where you have to like say why you should be watching so we should be like what you made a million pounds keep working to to find out how yeah so then you know you don't have that drop off of people watching the first few seconds become more Pro now.
Got a ring light this is what sponsorship does eh foreign I guess we should probably do an intro so uh what's the program we're doing again don't be a door stop don't beard or stop I was thinking off the back of last week I was um we we should change the the tagline to be um the tagline was Hammer Time last week we should change the tagline to be keep hammering those nails but it's not very catchy is it so keep nailing.
Yeah I'll keep hammering I'd uh I'll keep hammering some neighbors might not appreciate our audience yeah keep hammering yeah that's the way that we sign out we basically get a hammer and Hammer the table that's the way that we leave the conversation so jumping into today's topic I have started [Music] Elgato is it Elgato the streaming people oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so they've got a stream deck mobile app that you could trial for a month so I thought I'd give that a go.
Which is basically quick speeds to jump to new things um switching topic by talking about technology it's one of those things that um you always see them with uh with Gamers right where they can switch to different screens and predominantly they're switching different like covers on their um different um well I don't even know what they're called but different like layouts of the screen so yeah Green Screen yeah probably layers or whatever yeah I've noticed a lot of I've been.
Watching a lot of um uh the guy that does the camera work for the sidemen he's been going in each side man's house and redoing up there just like their setup basically so it's made me review my setup of going okay I know the Elgato brand on a whole is very good quality but quite expensive from the look of the website um but basically I thought why not try the app to see what quality it is but it.
Seems like it's just shortcuts you press a button and it'll do something so you can make it unmute I've only downloaded it five minutes before so you can tell I'm a pro and filled out massively apparently there's plugins for slack and toggles and stuff like that so I'm quite interested if you could go start timer stop timer Sam on lunchtime all these things that you have to do to save you five seconds a day five seconds a day for 20 years is a.
Good long time that you could yeah I think it's also the the solo the solo producer right so if you're the solo producer doing anything then you you don't have the extra person there with you when you're recording that thing at X hour um so it's always good when you have something quick to switch across yeah and I think that's the thing is using any technology uh as a fellow dyslexic person it's using things like Siri to get it reading out to you or looking at.
Anything else that can help you speed read anything or listen to stuff or use slack but more the audio and video side so I'm always an advocate for finding technology or or spaces to help you just be the best you help you for those who yeah yeah be a hammer but for those of um for those of us that don't necessarily know the impact of Dyslexia so we're Familiar of the term dyslexia but what's the what's the impact of.
Dyslexia for you if you don't mind sharing some of that I think for me I've listened to a really good book on Audible um which massively helped and it was called adult dyslexia let's see if I can uh fancy zoom in a zoom out see this is where you'd have those other buttons to be like cut it in yeah no no it's let's hope that it's not opposite otherwise it's not mine so uh okay it looks good to me but any dyslexic person could.
Probably read that because that's fine and it's basically saying how normally it affects four areas I feel like I really need to listen to it and reprocess what it's saying um but it's basically dyslexia affects your brain and I guess your brain affects everything so it's depending on so an average person would probably be an average in all four sections but normally a dyslexic person would be high in let's say two and low in two or high in three low in one so.
It's more of an extreme if you can tell they're really good at something and so good at other things like weaknesses so for me it's um reading I'm a slow reader even if I attempt to read quick the quicker I read the more I don't process anything it's as if I'm a reader for someone else and I don't have a brain um and and why so let's go deeper into that so why do you feel that your your.
Speed in Reading is slow what what what's the reason behind that I don't know I I think it's just I think it's a combination of how my brain processes information is a bit yes different but also I'm not a fan of reading so I think a combination of I've not really pushed myself as much as other people that may be really passionate readers I prefer to listen or to watch naturally I think if you went learning styles it'd be doing watching.
Them reading readings my lowest one so any form that I can listen to someone like podcasts or videos on YouTube and stuff I'll happily multitask doing work whilst listening to a pot I could happily listen to two or three podcasts a day and store more information than if I read one page yeah because the specific thing there is processing speed right so it's not necessarily that um the the speed is because you can't see the words or the words of jumping or.
Moving because obviously you you had people think that you needed glasses right I know you do wear glasses but they thought that you couldn't read the words and that's why you were slow but it wasn't that right okay they also have habit basically of any time I struggle to read something I would go closer and it was basically like a muscle memory that I'd always go closer every time I struggled so everyone thought that um there's different I don't even know if.
It's linked as a selection or it's linked to other things but that's why they were testing me with different like color screens and wondering if I needed glasses if I was getting blind that's why I'd zoom in so back when I was in year six I had to do an eye test and I had perfect vision back then so I had no issues with that and trying to explain to adults that you've just done something that you just naturally do and.
You don't know why it's quite hard because they always think you're doing it for a reason rather than just a bad habit that you've created yourself just to help you because I think in my brain the closer I move to it the more I can focus in all my energy because reading was hard all on a specific word because I think for me I read word by word rather than sentence or paragraph like other people so for me it's one word one.
Word one word one word what did I read and it's like you're so focused on specific words that it's like trying to paint a picture with one word glass door and your leg and I didn't understand the sentence well it's like oh no you picked up a glass in the kitchen to make yourself a drink I didn't get that at all um so yeah and what about what about when when people say that you should use like a color fill like you know like a.
Blue screen or like a blue piece of card or a red piece card or whatever over the words so you can read it with a tint how have you found that stuff yeah I didn't really need it at all I think sometimes I do find it easier not reading like white with black because it's quite strong to my eyes quite a lot my technology I I do um dark mode just for Ease on my eyes I don't think that's.
Uh because normally with the colors it's because the words and stuff sometimes can be moving around so they say the colors apparently relax you will change it I don't really know it wasn't taking in much information back when I was in year six I just knew it wasn't for me um but when I was in secondary school I knew someone that would always put a I think it was either a green or blue screen in front or glasses on with the.
Tint and for them it helped them so each to their own and I think it is finding whatever works for you you don't need to pick up all your skills from school because sometimes you learn things later on because you could comprehend more some people might have gone through school not knowing their dyslexic and learning it later like we've looked into having support with dyslexic coaching because we've got um I was going to say sponsored but that's not the right thing grants a grant yeah.
Yeah let's go into that go into that so what's that like what what is that so we got some grant money and they were basically asking what would I need for help and we're suggesting different things so I asked for different apps to help me read and to write things down so dictation so you can speak into it a lot of the time tend to use Siri because it's usually quite good but they were suggesting other programs so I thought.
I'd go along with it um I was saying how I struggle with process information and managing stuff and then they suggested not only a program but they also mentioned a coach like a workplace coach as they call it I call it dyslexic coaching because that's what I'm going there for people with ADHD or other um gifts in their life will get different advice but I was going more on the purpose of my main brains going in for coaching for my dyslexic side but I.
Have noticed I've got ADHD Tendencies which I learned from my coach apparently it's very natural that if you've got dyslexia you've probably got ADHD of some levels so I had eight sessions so it was as I could have them as spread out as much as I wanted so a lot of the time I would do it weekly or fortnightly because it gave me time to process like the week of okay let's put this into practice of um what my coaches suggested or said or.
Bounced back to me um but to be fair the coach that I was with she was so impressed with how much I was trying something seeing if it worked dropped it if it didn't trial something else apparently I was she's never come across someone like me that was trialling so much within a week and actually she was writing some notes of some quotes that I was saying to coaching the coach yeah that's another podcast for another time yeah and when you say ADHD Tendencies.
Explain what specifically for you jump jumped out so for me it's I guess it's like focusing so for a lot of people if they're in school they're like this is the place to be in Focus mode so I will just focus but for me it's like if I'm in school but my brain doesn't think I'm in school I can be just like wandering around thinking like looking back at school now anytime I was tired I used to sharpen my pencils.
Because it meant that you had the opportunity to walk to the bin sharpen your pencil and me being shy at school I didn't want to ask to go to the toilet all the time because then they would know something's up but you could get away with basically going shopping in a pencil that does everybody sharpening because it gives you that time just to detox to relax to calm yourself down oh yeah that's that's super interesting I appreciate everything that you're.
Sharing and it's kind of like I literally flashed back to doing exactly the same task of like yeah you literally stood over a bin to sharpen your Pence and then you go back to your desk like how crazy is the fact that and then you used to have to snap another pencil to go back it's one of those right I feel like this should be a podcast almost just sharpening pencils for half an hour there's probably a version where you.
Just do it really soft and yourself in this pencil really quietly it's kind of one of those things where the teacher says right there's a new math quite a maths test and you're like times a sharpen the First Source so that would be basically your time away to process or like recharge a little bit Yeah and finding an activity to fill in the Gap there yeah yeah because I find that how my brain works it's either sprinting or lying down that's the best way that I.
Could explain it that I could literally listen to podcast after podcast after podcast whilst working or I can't process any information and I have to go for a walk and it feels like there's two extremes that the older I've Got The more I've relaxed how I do work and the more I'll just Wing It of uh what I try and create now is is I um categorize jobs so if it's like a personal job if it's an admin job a.
Creative job so normally admin jobs so anything to do with writing reading something that is um like emailing or calling someone up so it's quite boring admin is not my gifting so I'll know that I'll need to be in a good headspace that I'm learning in the morning is the best time to do admin jobs creativeness so like design work or coming up with ideas I'd prefer I prefer that that's a lot more easier for me so I don't mind when during the day I do.
That um but I tend to leave it more to the afternoon because I know if I've done an admin job for the day and a creative job for the day it's been productive because I'm slowly moving each category forward but then I'll also have a personal job so with ADHD people probably know way more information about this but a lot of the time they need a lot of rewards because they get like a hit off the reward all the time to give them.
That buzz to then go into the next job so I might have a category that's like personal so it might be like because I work from home it's do the dishes or it's put on a wash anything that I know frees up my evening that I can do gaming or watch Netflix and those types of things it might be a personal task that if I'm really felt like I want to reward myself from a hard for me a hard admin.
Job for someone else it might be completely easy it is then going on putting on the washing because I know that's something that's slowly happening in the background that later on later on when I got my free evening I could spend it with my life with friends with family and it sort of removes those boring sort of Life admin jobs that I know I need to do and it sort of crushing them in and making most of my time whilst I've got.
The energy I find it's always a prioritization so so it's really interesting that you've been processing all this stuff which is great because ultimately you're trying to figure yourself out utilize everything that's around and some things have grants and and therefore are free or or you get reimbursed for it so you utilize everything and also kind of keep on trying to discover new stuff so you can basically optimize yourself so then when you do come to those tasks it's not.
As hard as it was three years ago five years ago 10 years ago because you've understood yourself a bit more found out what works for you and then applied something and I think the task related stuff to me I think what we forget is sometimes um when you have something like dyslexia or ADHD you see that like discovering the the solution to optimize um outside of that and as you see like see it as a superpower rather than a.
Failure once you've discovered that if you were to say Hey you know if you oriented tasks like this and you said that to someone that doesn't have ADHD or dyslexia they're like actually that just makes sense right it it's beneficial for for anybody and everybody so at what I find in in chatting with you about it is like like previously to this is some of these things around rewarding like make sense and and I I benefit from those things for myself as well so I.
Think what we sometimes forget is you know even though a group of people or an individual May um struggle with processing they then figure out okay for me it works like ABC and I do it this way and if it was shared if they were able to share that then that actually might help other people in other remits so I think the the motivation the reward stuff the the choosing kind of like to to get rid of one thing that's a little.
Bit harder so then you can do more enjoyable stuff you know those are really good patterns for for anybody to apply um which I think is great yeah I think it's tough because obviously when we go to school it feels like it's like the game Snakes and Ladders but school only teaches you the ladders you naturally from year one you go to year two year two you go to year three there's a natural progression there's a forward feel to it even let's say you.
Fail in year yeah one in like getting an F or something in one of your classes in maths or English or whatever you still progress forward but then instantly you either feel like you won the game you've come up with loads of eight stars or you've lost a game because you've quit the game but I think life is way more it's like complex it's it is like 3D snakes and others that even though you might quit let's say school at 16 but then.
Become a YouTube star and then make loads of money if your element of um success is money then you've won if your element of success is romant but your single made loads of money with YouTube then you've lost your game and your your brain and I think a lot of the time it is recognizing you I think Seasons like you will have seasons of cold and rain and snow but you will have seasons of sun and sunshine and it's going.
It's making sure that if it's a windy day that you put the sales up there's no point wrestling with the win by trying to row you put the sails up catch the breeze so if you've got that energy you jump on it you ride it as much as you can but instantly when it goes you don't try and drag a horse to make it drink water because it's just not going to work and I think we need to give ourselves permission to.
Be okay with us not working every second of every day um and give us permission to to reward ourselves like we're not robots I think it is reward ourselves or have a break or find our Niche thing and I think it is easier when you get older because you understand yourself slowly more as you get on and you bump into new people that might say oh you do that really good or you do that interesting or you do that differently.
So you learn those different com that combination that makes you become you I think the the key thing here is like be kind to yourself right you are the I head somewhere that someone said you are the person that will be around yourself 24 7. you're the only person that does that regardless if you have a partner or have a family you will be the person that's around yourself the most therefore if you are the one person around the most because you can't get.
Out of yourself right you can't get away from that you should therefore you know be super kind to yourself encourage yourself and I think it is figuring yourself out in the sense of like any sort of motivation I I don't get motivated necessarily you know if it's kind of like someone shouting at you yeah come on you can do this I get motivated if I'm like I'm really good at this and you can like instill stuff yourself and it's just really about.
Figuring yourself out and you and you do it slowly and and one actual thing I was thinking about when you're sharing was like read a book about I think it was called Think and Grow Rich I think something like that and it came down to the idea of you should think of days as efficient and inefficient and what you want for success and success me it can be defined in many different ways for many different people and to to get that that success which is.
Basically getting that Vision that you have for for what whatever you want to achieve so there's a success of achieving that whatever that vision is for you and vision is like some idea of oh I want that car or I want that you know that job or I want to run that charity wherever that thing is success is basically equal to consecutive um efficiencies so if you can just focus on being efficient rather than inefficient and do it over so efficient.
Efficient efficient inefficient efficient efficient efficient inefficient you know ultimately the efficiency the volume of that efficiency will get you towards that that goal and that's the equation it's as simple as that is your day can you say your a day is efficient or not efficient and ultimately again efficiency unless your goal is to be unefficient yeah yeah unless you don't want these things I think with everything everything has nuance and detail and everybody is uniquely different we should celebrate.
That so this catch-all of like what is efficient efficient might be you know one thing it might not be ten things you know it might be that one thing on your to-do list there's a guy that we listen that I listen to that's gotten rid of his to-do list in the sense of a list of things because it's demoralizing because it's never ending and he changed it to think of just like one thing and that one thing the way that he works are the.
One thing is the one thing that has the most impact again impact is Up For Debate right so the one thing that has the most impact and possibly the most urgent and what he used to do is then um as long as he's done that one thing it doesn't matter then what you've done right so long as you've done the one with the most impact and the most urgency and that's you can then class that as a day of efficiency and then the.
Build up of that over time naturally is going to achieve that goal of yours and he did this grid which was basically urgent non-urgent and then um low impact high impact and then he would just draw some because obviously he needs to store some of the things he thinks about and he stores it in that order so then if he needs that one thing he looks at the High Impact Urgent box and tries to achieve something in there.
And then he feels the loads better about it so what is a technology that's helped you out with your weaknesses would you say what would be something that you're like either that's helped you out now or helped you out in the past School uni or whatever life stage that you've gone actually this has been quite helpful for me I think listeners that might be wanting that to look into different sources I think yeah yeah that makes sense it's a good.
Question as well I think for me mindset is the biggest thing it's like your perception your understanding of of whether or not something is difficult or hard and the way that you break that I would say it's not necessarily technology as such but it's like the the medium like media as in audio um interviews and books at the idea that expertise is not necessarily how much knowledge you can store it's actually knowing the right keywords to put into.
Google like that that is an expert it's not that you can memorize everything it's that you remember the right keywords to get to the right answering and Google and like little Snippets like that those insights basically just chill you out so then you better self like anybody that like stresses to get more output and puts more stress on themselves in my case I don't work like that the more stress the less likely I'm going to achieve something and it's.
Better to like release that and remove those pressures and and try and bring the goals to be like yeah what's up one thing that you can do we'll call it what long as you've done that and you do it consecutively and I think like the the second thing really so I would say yeah audible books and stuff to like develop mind to remove myself out of thinking oh I'm not good enough or the the insecurities that I have or.
Um what's the what's the one imposter syndrome like impossible there's a really good interview with Stephen bartler and Lewis Capaldi Lewis Capaldi is a singer and he's super famous from from um you know if we played a song you'd know exactly who he is and you know people like that are discussing his insecurities or the Imposter syndrome and that stuff and he specifically was saying when he walks into a room something inside of him makes him feel like everybody dislikes him like.
Everybody doesn't like him and like that's loose Capaldi right like and you could take anybody and I'm like in the same way that you know Lewis could probably feels that like sometimes I felt insecure about that as well you know so it's trying to balance the whole um yeah the mindset game and I think in a practical sense literally my iPhone's reminders and what I've done now is to go down to the whole like focus on one it's better.
Basically to go down to um to just flagging one one reminder and then just showing that flagged list so there's only one in that list rather than having 20 things in that list so yeah that would be me it says here that you need to refresh your page and then continue to continue recording so if you reload your page hopefully this will still work and hopefully he'll come back and if not this will be one of the most interesting monologues.
To finish off that's fine I thought I'd have to monologue for a little bit there but I I think after this maybe keep your browser open I might need to shut it all off it's saying refresh again uh we'll hold it for now and we'll see if Tom disappears in this recording and it's just me talking to myself then this will be fascinating so this is the beauty of using um internet technology to to record something you never know if something.
Drops halfway through yeah sounds good did you did you catch what I was saying did you catch any of what I was saying yeah so I can hear it all I can even see myself and see you but there is just something blocking and making both of us slightly blurry and I can't read anything on the page to know if it's saying if the recording's canceled or not well it's telling me something went wrong during recording please have Tom runland refresh the page.
And continue recording to continue recording but you already have so I wouldn't bother refreshing it again what we could probably do is just um you summarize your Tech pieces and hopefully this doesn't go to dead air yeah so what would you say from a technology perspective or or so for me I'm an iPhone user so looking at the settings in accessibility I always go in there to see what is useful I make sure dictation's on that's been a.
Massive upgrade in iOS 16 that you could actually turn on dictation you can edit the text and then speak and then edit and speak so it's not just you're just speaking or you're just editing but you could actually do both in one that has massively took a a Leap Forward specifically for the phone I know iPad and laptop will be coming soon um but that would be my super useful one and then it's just encourage people to use audio on WhatsApp or messages to.
Take in information more easier um or we've both we've both benefited from that even working together haven't we or yeah noting each other yeah it's Slack something useful that we use um I'd say that one is the main one and then categorize either specific jobs that you hate doing and like doing and try and summarize instead of jobs I hate jobs I like because then it puts a negative connotation every time you want to do I do this job that I hate call it.
An admin or call it Finance or call it art what whatever imagine it's like a class in school what would you call it you might not like it but you won't call I hate this you might express your feelings towards that but you call it r or CDT or PE you call it something that's linked to the topics behind but you're not saying I'm doing like my pile now like no one wants to hear that and encouraging that.
Um and also have a pile of encouragements things that you class as a win either that games back from your um evenings like me or it might be just text a friend during a day that you've not texted in a while that you've been waiting to do that you could do during your cup of tea of the morning afternoon um so yeah or equally when I use spaces and and stuff like that it might be physically moving around if it's moving around the office.
Standing up sitting down you might have a different feeling of standing up you might be more creative or or sitting down you might find it easier to read if it's on a more comfortable seat I'm constantly moving around the house to hijack my brain to make it work the best I can and moving stuff around the house to to make me feel like I'm getting the most productivity out and that doesn't matter if I'm sitting standing lying on the floor sitting on.
The bed just finding whatever works for me for that day 100 yeah I think with all this stuff and if we bring it into land with all this stuff the most important thing is self-reflection to identify you know is there a way that you can make things easier for yourself in a processing or execution way and if there is why not try it and experiment with it because you literally are going to be around yourself uh until you pass away right like you're.
The person around the most so why not work with yourself to figure out the best optimum way to to process things remove those stresses like decrease like remove that um kind of bar because you're the one that sets the bird remove that bar recognize that everybody is in you know similar mind states of whether or not it's insecurities and stuff and yeah don't be afraid to go and get counseling like I've done Counseling group counseling like individual counseling.
It's all about trying to find the most consistent version of yourself and I think that's what therapy brings or that's what counseling brings is helping you to find a consistent version of yourself that's the best consistent version of yourself yeah sweet well I hope that there wasn't just a massive dip where you've exited out of the call You Know spoken well I know I've not spoken and then I speak at the end but nonetheless I'm going to publish it and.
If it fails then we can just rehash what this was last week so what was our final tagline to wrap us out dead air hammock no hammer it no what was it what did we say nail it nail it nail it nailers.