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Have you ever felt like it takes you 10x longer to do a task than it takes someone else?
I know the feeling.
I was diagnosed with neurodivergence in high school. Long before ADHD TikTok and neurodivergent subreddits. Not only did I not know what to do with that diagnosis, no one else did either. Including the psychiatrist who diagnosed me.
"Well, good luck out there. Life's gonna be hard! Here's some anxiety meds."
It wasn't until 20 whole years later, when I started watching videos from autistic and ADHD creators and reading posts from neurodivergent writers that I began to understand WHAT EXACTLY my brain might be doing.
- Why did it take me so long to do my work tasks? Maybe because I was easily distracted at the office and had to wait until I had quiet space at home.
- How come my to do list never got done? Because I had an unrealistic sense of time and packed too much on every day.
- Why was I procrastinating all my projects to the last minute? Probably because it was hard to break down and start projects myself.
This is a major reason why I became an entrepreneur. I needed more flexible and supportive working conditions.
Just one problem: distraction, procrastination and overwhelm...they came with me.
The first couple years of my business I buckled through it (like I had all my life. I honestly didn't know I could do something different.) But last year, someone told me about Sunsama and I was stunned at how well it worked for me.
Sunsama is a daily planner that's beloved by people with ADHD and AuDHD because it helps with some of the challenges we experience at work.
Establishing a daily planning ritual
One of the first things Sunsama has you do is set up a daily planning ritual.
You get to decide: when you plan your day and how long should your day be. They walk you through it step by step.
How this helps: Sunsama gently reminds you there should be a start and end to each day. Their guidance makes the planning part so much less overwhelming because it's just showing you today's work. And their daily shutdown prompt encourages you to stop and reflect on what you've accomplished (a nice dopamine hit!)
By the way, if you hate that idea. You can just turn it off! The flexibility is one of my favorite things about this tool.
Visualizing how long tasks will take
This has long been a major problem for me: TIME OPTIMISM. A LinkedIn post? Maybe 15 mins? Prep for a workshop? Perhaps an hour? Wrong. every. time.
Sunsama gives you a view of your tasks AND your meetings together. It adds automatic time estimates, and if you want, you can drag the tasks onto your calendar so you can see how much you can do today.
How this helps: Seeing how long tasks will take helps you learn how long things actually take. You "budget" them with Sunsama and over time, you just get better at it, so eventually, Sunsama knows how long a task will take and you do too.
Signaling too much work on your plate
Do you stack too much on every day and then feel disappointed and ashamed you didn't get to it all? I used to work until 12am, 1am, 2am, but no more thanks to a little friendly alert known as "Caution: unrealistic workload."
Since we've estimated everything in Sunsama (or let them do it for us), they know when you've planned to do TOO MUCH. And they have a one touch way to push some of it off until the next day.
How this helps: Seeing this warning will start training you to take it easy on how much work you commit to. You'll begin to right size your days and you'll be able to actually wind down work at a reasonable hour because you stop setting yourself up to fail every day.
Automating reminders
If you have any repetitive tasks (like something you do every week or every time X happens), you can create recurring reminders or behavior triggered tasks.
I set up a recurring reminder to write my newsletter inside Sunsama. It appears every week without me adding it. I also have Zapier add a new task every time a paid member joins with a few subtasks I like to do (like welcoming them). This is hooked from my Stripe through Zapier to Sunsama. There's a lot of integrations like that available if you're using other tools but want Sunsama to be your day planner.
How this helps: Automations like this reduce how much I have to remember in my brain and they let me focus on my creative work.
Focusing task by task
One of my biggest battles is with distraction, and if you're neurodivergent, you know the pain. Sunsama has Focus Mode to keep you on track.
Focus Mode will take over the whole app screen to remind you of what you're supposed to be working on (should you get distracted every 5 minutes like I do.) You can minimize the app and keep the Focus Bar on (that tiny window up top in the photo below.) You can use this with the timer on and/or use their pomodoro timer. I don't love being timed but other folks find it helpful.
How this helps: You're reminded of what you're supposed to be working on any time you're distracted so it's easier to get back to work and stay on task.
Sunsama genuinely has changed the way I work more than any of the 10+ psych professionals I've had in my life and more than the 100+ TikToks I've watched on this subject. Over time, its subtle coaching and gentle encouragement have given me hundreds of hours back to close my laptop and celebrate a job well done.
If you struggle with distraction, overwhelm and procrastination, I really think you should give Sunsama a try with today's to do list and see how it goes. I'm rooting for you to have a smooth, rewarding day at work.
🎲 Lex
P.S. Want more about Sunsama? Here's a few other posts I've written about them.
Lex Roman
Lex Roman
Lex Roman
