24: ADHD in Business
Today we're shooting the shit from Newcastle, 2 hours north of Sydney, and we've got Jane from The Jane Edit and Newcastle Virtual Assistants joining us. Jane gets real about her ADHD diagnosis and how she's not just surviving, but absolutely crushing it in business. We dive deep into the tools that keep her sane, the strategies that help her thrive, and all the messy, beautiful bits of managing a business when your brain works a little differently. Expect some serious real talk about mental health, some laughs about work chaos, and a whole lot of inspiration for anyone who's ever felt like their brain is running a marathon while everyone else is on a leisurely walk.
Number of fucks given in this episode: 11
Mentioned in this episode:
Jane Ekholm's website, The Jane Edit
Newcastle Virtual Assistants (created by Jane and Adrienne Donnelly)
Calm app, including Matthew McConaughey
Focus Mate, for virtual co-working/body doubling
Transcript
Rah: Ready? Go. Welcome to the Fuck Around and Find Out podcast, where your hosts Rah, Emily and Christine. We're three women who have built and run our own businesses, and we're here to shoot the shit on everything about women in business and running your own business.
Jane: Yeah, baby.
Rah: Hello, Emily. Hey, Christine. Hey, Rah.
Special day today up in Newcastle. We are. Oh my gosh, it's crystal gorgeous day outside. And here we are in a room with no windows.
Emily: How can we move to Newcastle? Yes. Yes. How can we relocate you?
Rah: Well, I do believe the person we've got with us is going to be working very hard on that. Yes.
Emily: Yes. Some subtle influencing.
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. A slight shout out to
Rah: Jane who will be talking shortly.
Emily: Convincing us.
Rah: Yes. Now, question for you two, to kick us off. As we don't introduce ourselves properly. Yes. Because we all know who we are. Yes. Yes. And if you don't, lucky you. Good on ya. So. Are you ready? Yes. What tools do you use to fall asleep?
You
Emily: know, important information people
Rah: need to know about us. Yes, clearly. For us
Emily: giving me a look because I got a bit of a random one. Yes, and this is
Rah: why we got started on this conversation before I hit record. Yes.
Emily: So I feel like I need to contextualise what I was saying earlier before we got into this topic.
Sure. Um, so I can listen to music to fall asleep, but I can listen to like, borderline screamo rock music to fall asleep. I literally have a playlist called angry music and I've got like, I'm very much a person that emotes via music sometimes. Like I manage my, a lot of it's my anger or if I'm not like, if I'm depressed or anything like that, my music tends to reflect how I feel.
So if I'm listening to a lot of like really hardcore rock music, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff going on in there. And I, but I've listened, like my, one of my favorite bands is disturbed. Oh, it's literally called Disturbed? It's called Disturbed. Yes. They're amazing. They're a really good band. Um, look them up.
They're great. You might hate it if you don't like rock music. The Sound of Silence is the one I like from them. Yeah, it's the most popular one. He remixed the original song with his voice. It's fucking amazing. Um, I'm like a Linkin Park girl too. I like, you know, Breaking Benjamin, like there's a whole bunch, Papa Roach, like, you know, a whole lot.
I like rock music. I'm a rock girl. Okay. Um, but this stuff, I can, I can fall asleep to it in the car. Like, it doesn't, I can very easily sleep to it, but I sleep to it because I I'm one of those people that I end up just kind of my brain never shuts up. So I tend to, I'll say, imagine I scenario based things in my brain.
And that's actually how I fall asleep. Probably why I wake up being like I've got this and this and this to do because I will come up with ideas in my head, but I work through stuff in my head. And that's how I fall asleep. If that makes sense. Chris is giving me a look like. Yeah, right. Like you're processing.
I'm thinking my
Christine: brain would be way, really awake by then and I won't go to sleep. But
Emily: it's, it's, I don't know, I've been doing it for years, but it's like I run scenarios in my brain almost. So cute. To fall asleep. You know, like this week, there's been an old boss of mine who I just fucking adored. We had such a good friendship, aside from the work, that I just, I really miss him at the moment.
And I've been thinking a lot about him lately, and I just kind of was in my head imagining that I might bump into him somewhere, like what he might be like. So your brain's trying to manifest,
Rah: because I've done that recently, and then I ran into that person. Wow. These are not
Christine: ways I fall asleep at all.
It's just.
Rah: So what do you do to fall asleep, Chris?
Christine: Well, it's not that well. Well, it's funny. When I was much younger, um, sleep was not my friend. So, um, all through like, you know, those primary age high school stages, I could like go to bed and it would be two, three hours before I would finally fall asleep.
So sleep didn't come to me. These days I just feel that I'm just damn more tired than normal and it comes easier. But traditionally, you know, the room has to be pitch dark. There has to be, it has to be cold. There has to be air circulating. So I sleep under a fan. Every night of the year. Um, yeah, it gotta be a cold room.
Um, but, but, um, because Mr, uh, 17 is a pea plater, and he walks at night or he drives home from things, um, if I feel like I need to be in bed before he's home, I can't be asleep. I have to wait for my chicken to come home to the nest. Um, but yeah, me, it's just that. But if I've, my brain is switched on, my Kindle sits next to my bed all the time and I only have to read a little bit and I get sleepy sleepy tired, then I go to sleep.
Ra, what about you? I listen
Rah: to podcasts or YouTube videos. Okay. Um, so. So I listened to, um, stuff you should know popular U S sort of info podcast. It just got nice voices. Um, I also listened to no such thing as a fish. No such thing as a fish, which is the QI podcast from the, um, um, the elves who do all the research for the TV show.
I also listened to old episodes on YouTube of QI. 8 out of 10 cats and 8 out of 10 cats does countdown. Um, would I lie to you? Those sorts of panelist shows because they're not offensive. Like there's nothing, I could probably fall asleep like you when with anything, but I, if people talking, I focus on that.
And that's it.
Christine: You know that Matthew McConaughey actually voices us? Yes. All that alright, alright. Yeah, yeah.
Emily: Yes. That was quite good. I've been practising. He's got a great voice that guy.
Rah: Yeah, sure does. I'm pretty
Emily: sure he does an AM, AMSR thing as well. Oh, does he? As well as the calm sleeping? Yeah.
Rah: Why not?
Yes. Well, even though we're talking about sleep, we have someone with us who has us quite awake. No, but sleep also ties,
Emily: sleep does actually tie beautifully into this topic. Oh, that's a good point. Okay.
Rah: That's much better segue. Yeah. Yeah.
Emily: Segues are off today. Yeah.
Rah: Great. Like I've been saying earlier, I can't, I don't have a segue, but I want to talk about this.
Emily: Which also works. They won't be bad. A
Rah: hundred percent. But we have Jane with us today from The Jane Edit. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. I've been waiting to be introduced so that
Jane: I can get into the conversation. So, it's our little test at the beginning of a
Emily: podcast to see if people can control themselves.
Yes.
Rah: So, what's your top level detail to us, who you are, what you do? Oh yeah, like how you're following us on
Jane: there. Um, how I fall asleep is very easy. I listen to audio books. So yeah, I listened to hundreds and hundreds of hours of audio books. Um, the three
Emily: people that might have a little bit of
Jane: spicy,
Emily: spicy, um,
Jane: and yeah, I probably listened to a book for an hour every night.
Um, it has to be fiction though, cause nighttimes are for spicy romance and thriller books. Yes. They're definitely not for learning things and putting things into my brain because I think. Like you. Um, I would just be up all night then thinking about, you know, what to do and how I can implement that. And yeah, so no, absolutely not.
I definitely turn off and listen to something spicy or thrilling. Uh, yeah. So that's what I do to get to sleep and I have no problem sleeping at all for about nine or 10 hours a night. It is nice, but you need to rest your little ADHD brain, so, that's the way I see it.
Christine: Yeah, yeah, not enough babe.
Jane: Um, but, as Rah said, I'm Jane from the Jane Edit.
I run a successful virtual assistant business in Newcastle. Um, I'm also the co founder of the Newcastle Virtual Assistants. where we support and mentor and guide and, um, do all lovely things with about 260 virtual assistants up here in Newcastle. Wow, that's amazing. Strong
Christine: numbers. Yeah, that's great.
Jane: It's um, it started with Adrian Donnelly, my, um, my partner in myself.
Nearly six years ago now with just the two of us. We've grown, um, we've grown over the last six years and yeah, it's something that really, um, is one of my passions and I love supporting other women in business.
Emily: And I think our lovely topic of the day is one that we're all finding fascinating. And we won't lie, this might be take two at this lovely episode because we were so So chaotic, the recording, very intense conversation that we were like, forgot that we were actually recording.
So we did well with that, but, um, it's about ADHD.
Jane: Absolutely. So I am a woman with ADHD. Um, and I run my own business. So, you know, those two are somewhat the polar opposites of each other. Um, but to be honest, they work beautifully together once you have all of the systems in place and the tools that you need and the support that you need to run your own business.
Quite frankly, I do not belong in corporate nine to five. I did that for about 20 years. So when I was 18 years old, I went into the corporate world, um, and struggled, struggled, struggled, struggled. Just, it's not a system designed for somebody, um, with ADHD. Um, especially for myself anyway, I guess I can just speak for myself, but it's, um, it's something that, um, really, if anything, was, the detriment to my mental health as opposed to helping me thrive.
Um, which is really funny because I do thrive very much on stress and a, a big, um, you know, an environment. Yeah. That has tight deadlines. Um, however, uh, you know, going to work at nine in the morning and just. like, going somewhere that's going to suck my soul is just very, very bad mentally for someone with ADHD.
Christine: Yeah.
Jane: Yeah. Not fun at
Christine: all.
Jane: No. So, look, I was, I'm one of the lucky ones, I think, that I was able to escape that sort of life, um, but then again, you know. Um, doing that is just not a risk for someone like me. I, um, I very much so have a risk taking behavior. Um, and so leaving a job, um, or secure financial environment is, is nothing to me.
I just think, yeah, I'll just jump into the next thing and see how it goes. Um, but I do have the skills and the tools and the support around me. So I'm very lucky to be able to do that.
Emily: That's amazing. Ooh. I love it. There's nothing quite like taking that leap. Absolutely. It's so fun. Though I did read something the other day that was actually like, women are more inclined to do that than men.
Than men. Men will talk themselves out of it. Ah,
Jane: that's interesting. Because they, I
Emily: think it's also societal expectation that they are to be breadwinners and have a stable job and so when it comes to something like starting your own business and walking away from corporate life, they're more likely to do that.
That's interesting. Very interesting. That's like the opposite of what I thought. Yeah, but I mean, I think it's very personality type based, right? Like, you think about, like, I look at my husband and I don't think he ever, he actually wants to start a little side hustle, which I That's fascinating. Never would have gone down that path I don't think without me.
Yep. But I think he's also saying that it works, like if you have the right thing, it will work. Absolutely. And I think he thinks he's definitely got the right thing. It's very nerdy and very him and it probably will work and he's like, okay, so how do I do this? Oh, that's awesome. How, how did you work out you had ADHD and when, cause I'm pretty, you told me I think once before your diagnosis wasn't actually.
Like it was recent ish.
Jane: Uh, yes, absolutely. So, um, it was around 2000, 2000, sorry, 2021.
Around 2020 to 2021, so it was during the pandemic, um, and I was working harder than I've ever worked. So being a virtual assistant, um, actually, um, was really great during that time when many other people struggled. Um, I, yeah, um, doubled or tripled my workload. So I was really, really busy and I just found that I just couldn't cope anymore the way that, um, I used to be able to cope.
Yeah. So like everybody during the pandemic, um, I was on Tik Tok quite a lot. You know, that's when I
Rah: discovered Tik Tok. Absolutely.
Jane: Um,
Rah: is that when it came out? It was before
Emily: that,
Rah: but that was when I got right into it. But that's where it
Emily: blew it up. Yeah. The pandemic, that one is for them and the
Rah: content creator life.
QR codes, they were the big winners of COVID. Right.
Jane: And Zoom. Um, and I think my algorithm just took me down a path of seeing women that, um, Uh, looked exactly like me, behavioral wise, and I didn't, it was almost, um, speechless. I didn't really know what to think. I'm like, I knew there was something different about me, um, since I was in high school.
I knew there was something a little off or no not off that's terrible there was something a little different i was not like
um but yeah i didn't know what it was i certainly didn't think it was adhd because as far as i knew adhd was only from you know eight year old boys that run around with their stick in their hand and yeah and hit all the other kids so yeah i I certainly didn't know that girls even got ADHD. So I started seeing women on TikTok that, um, behaved exactly like I did.
And, um, and we're behaving that way and not thinking that there was something wrong with them or that they were, they were crazy or that they were doing something wrong or that they were bad, it was all very positive. And, um, it, You know, giving a lot of like energy around ADHD being a superpower and how, um, you can actually use it to your advantage.
And I think that I'd probably been doing that my entire career, but without knowing it. And then when I would finally, you know, struggle and, and not be able to kind of keep up with my work during the pandemic. I actually went for a formal diagnosis, um, which took about six weeks. I was concerned. Is that all?
Yeah, it wasn't too bad. Come to Newcastle. It took me six months. Oh, hell. Um, I think I actually got an appointment where there was, um, a cancellation. So I was really lucky. Right. Yeah. I just kind of slipped in, um, had all of my testing done and yeah, and I came out a winner. ADHD all the way. Absolutely.
Which then kind of like led me to being able to get support, be able to see myself and understand my behaviors, be able to understand how others perceived me and my behavior, and then to, you know, get medication or counseling or therapy or something, if that's the road that I wanted to go down. So yeah, so it's been about three or four years now.
Rah: Yeah. Wow. Okay. And it's
Jane: changed. It's a long road. It was a really long road from um, getting diagnosed to where I am now. And it will always be a long road, I think, but I'm used to the long road, so .
Emily: Yeah.
Jane: And I do it with such grace and kindness to myself now. Yes, you do. I love it. Love it. That's the key thing that I ever learned from getting diagnosed is to just start to be kind to myself and give myself grace.
Yeah. Most important. Yeah. And that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just very unique .
Rah: And as someone who is. In the middle of being, having been diagnosed in his, in his Hopefully, by the time this episode's out, we'll be medicated for ADHD. So it's very exciting to have this kind of hope on the horizon that I'm going to be productive as fuck.
Jane: Oh my goodness. Okay, well we need to sit down together and talk about what that means.
Rah: We can compare drugs, and apps, and all the
Jane: things.
Emily: There was the other point of that where I'm pretty sure I have it, but I'm like, I'm really productive as it is. Like I, I feel like I'm working with sometimes maybe overly, overly productive.
Oh, I'm probably hyperfunctioning in a lot of ways. Yeah, absolutely.
Jane: But that, see that doesn't mean that you like, you know, like don't have ADHD. So you do think that you are, you're self diagnosed and you're very productive. Also self diagnosed
Emily: my child.
Jane: So that doesn't mean that you need to actually go and get assistance.
So it's, it's not a problem until you start to find that it's interrupting your everyday life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so that's where I got to the point during the pandemic where I was working so much that I just couldn't cope anymore. Um, to a point of, I love my clients. I love the work I was doing. I was really passionate about it, but I physically, it was coming out in physical symptoms for me where I could not sit at my desk without actually holding onto my desk to stay there and do something like I just wanted to get away, um, physically, but mentally I'm like, what the hell's going on?
Yeah. Yeah. So it was fascinating. It was weird.
Rah: Yeah. So what do you do differently now?
Jane: I'm sure there's lots, but what are the
Rah: big factors? So
Jane: the first one, um, which I already mentioned was to see, uh, give myself grace and kindness. Yeah. Um, and, um, and just to take literally take one day at a time. Like I know that there'll be good days and I know that there'll be bad days and that's okay now.
I used to really beat myself up about it. Why can't I be normal? Why can't I be like that person? You know, why can't I get up at seven in the morning
Emily: consistently and do things like
Jane: that? Well, I mean, that's one of the things that I've changed. So I have a really lovely slow morning routine. Um, I know that I don't function well in the mornings.
Um, I actually have something called sleep Oh my god, what's it called? Apnea? No, it's, it's where you don't wake up, uh, like crisply and fully. I call it
Christine: perimenopause. You
Emily: just have to be eternally tired. My daughter's like, my son, like I, like my son and my husband can just It's literally as if you've hit it on the switch with them.
They're just, yeah. Whereas my daughter is like a mirror image of me to the point where my mom is pissed herself laughing at watching the two of us walk out of the bedroom at the same time. Cause she's like, big version, little version. We're both just not like, my daughter is a cranky fuck in the morning.
She is not. a happy girl and she needs some cuddles and some love and then she's cool. So there is actually, and I'm,
Christine: and
Emily: I'm not saying
Christine: this silly, but there is, you know, how someone should say you're not a morning person. I say, my son's not a morning person. There is a medical term for not
Jane: being a morning person.
It's where you actually wake up in a different cycle of your sleep cycle. So you wake up before there's sleep. Sleep cycle's supposed to be over. Yeah, right. So there's a bit of a hangover, if you will. Anyway. Interesting. So, um. It is like a hangover. That's exactly how I feel. So I have a really lovely slow
Rah: morning routine.
And the hangover ? No, no, nothing like that.
Jane: Um, and yeah, I'm just really kind to myself in the mornings. Um, I don't have meetings, you know, before 10 or 11 in the morning with clients. Um, I, you know, lay in bed for an hour and I have a, a cup of tea and, and, um, I listen, this is when I do listen to nonfiction.
So I, this is when I listen to podcasts or, um, nonfiction books or interviews, um, or things like that. So this is the time of learning. Um, it's when I can actually take in a lot of information, uh, just in a really restful way, which is really nice. Not before I'm about to go to sleep, but when I'm about to seize the day.
So it's actually really quite motivating and inspiring. Uh, so yeah, so that's one of the things that I do. And then I have a hundred other coping mechanisms, so I have, I don't know, like five or six calendars around the house.
Emily: I do that too. Everywhere. Everywhere that you might accidentally look. Like in the fridge.
Or on the cupboard.
Jane: Or in the bath, in the toilet. Where the husband
Emily: also might look. I don't really have a toilet
Jane: one. You have a toilet calendar? Sitting there thinking about what I've got to do tomorrow. It's a productive use of time. Yeah. I also, um, use Obviously a digital calendar, so my work life would be lost without that.
So, um, I have my calendars linked to my iPhone, my Mac and my iPad. So that's another significant thing that I did. I actually merged over to Apple. So all of my products are talking to each other and that has literally changed. The game for me, work wise. Yeah, and having an iPad, um, that you can write on and take notes live with clients.
Yeah, your iPad impresses
Emily: me. It's the size of a computer.
Jane: Thank you. It is actually, it's the large. It's great. The large, if you will. I am eyeing off your
Rah: large one, because I've got OCD. small old one and I'm just like, Oh, it's so
Jane: much. Well, look, I actually, I upgraded from a mini. So, um, but this has changed the game for me so I can hand write all of my notes and handwriting and writing is actually just one of the ways that my ADHD is controlled during a meeting with a client, for example.
So it's me scribbling things down, writing notes. It's drawing little doodles, um, so that my brain doesn't then go off and get distracted and think about other things. So I'm in the room, I'm in the moment and yeah, it's just, it works really, really well for me. It's this, this point of like, um, having from your brain to your fingertips and writing things down is really important to me to help things
Emily: stick.
I need to do something with my hands. I can't like, I don't, everyone laughs at me because if you see me in a zoom meeting, I will be definitely doing multiple things at once. But if I'm sitting there like trying to, I will not be listening. I'll be gone somewhere else. Absolutely. I need to be like. A couple of things just to be actually able to focus on what's
Jane: Well, you could use a fidget toy or something like that.
But during my meetings with clients, they're generally giving me information. So it's good that I'm writing it down. It took a while to work that out
Christine: with, um, working alongside Em, even way before we, um, got into the actual biz together. because, yeah, Emily can have, you know, three things going on in the computer in front of her.
We're doing a Zoom with a client. I just listen and stare and take notes because I can write without actually looking where I'm writing and, and stuff. Um, but Emily's got so much going on in front of her. And originally, Yeah. I might've got in my head, you know, we could just focus on the client here or something, but actually she is focusing on the client, but in her own way.
And I tend to preface it when I'm in meetings
Emily: with people who haven't worked with me before that I'm like, I am listening. I just do multiple things at once, but I am listening. Agreed. And then they're like, Oh yeah, okay. But it actually works well. Cause I know Chris note takes so well that I'm like, cause I'm shocking at it.
So. It's depending, sometimes I'm terrible at it, sometimes I'm great at it, but I will then doodle off if I'm not like, you know, and so. Doodle off? Yeah, there you go. It's a technical term.
Christine: It's a technical term.
Emily: But I, I, it's great. I thought you said you'll doodle off. You're not going that far. But Chris is so amazing.
Like good with her note taking that it takes that pressure off me to feel like I have to as well. Sure. But I'm also that person that's like, we'll be talking about, Oh, well, why don't we do this? Why don't we do that? I'm like, done. Yeah. I'll just do it while we're talking. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm like, I work better that way.
Like I'll end a meeting and say to Chris, so while we were doing that, I've invoiced this person and this person, I've done this, I've booked this meeting in. And she's like, yeah, that's practically used my time. Yeah. But I have still listened to the entire meeting and I do know what I have to do. It's different when I'm, you know, running a website with someone or something like that.
But I, I just can't. Just listen. Which is probably why I struggled at school quite possibly.
Jane: Um, what else do I do? Yes, tell me. Can you tell us about your timetable? Let's get back in the room girls. Yes, it's exactly what I was going to say. So not only do I use lots of calendars and diaries and an iPad, actually the best thing I've ever bought was like, I don't even know how much it was, 5 off Amazon.
And it is a timer cube. Um, and what it is, is it looks like a dice, um, but it is. I don't know the shape, the size of a, an apple. It's like a rub. A big apple, but a Rubik's cube. Yeah, exactly. Um, and so every single side has, um, a time on it. So whether that's 15 minutes, uh, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and 60 minutes, I think.
Um, and so when you turn it on, you turn the dye to the. amount of time that you get that you want. It's generally 60 minutes for me that I work in 60 minute blocks. Um, and so I will turn it up to 60 minutes. And during that time, um, I don't know what it is. There's something magical about it. Perhaps it's beating the time I turn it into a game.
Um, but I can get so much done in that 60 minutes. And when that alarm goes off, that's it. Like I'll just put a little mark down on my iPad. That I've worked for one hour and then I can start thinking about other things and go and get a drink or yeah Get back on to it
Emily: It's amazing for every like Yeah. What is it for every, I think it's a half an hour or 45, whatever, whatever that period of time is, within an hour, you're supposed to actually stand up and go for a walk. Yes, they do. Yeah. Absolutely. So actually would force you to do that. Let's say that's what I do.
Jane: Absolutely. So after, yeah. Yeah. I have a little stretch break. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't. But you know, in a
Christine: perfect world, you could. I'm just thinking, and it's completely off topic, but I'm wondering if that might be a helpful tool for Mr. I'm about to do the HSC kind of study, uh, program. Cause you can just
Rah: do it.
It's like, it's. You do a long version, but the Pomodoro of the 25. Yeah. Yeah.
Jane: Yeah. Yeah. Which is really cool. It's been a game changer for my work. Um, so I recommend everybody gets one for free with this vodka. When I first saw you with it, I was like,
Emily: I want one. Yeah. I don't know if I'd use it properly, but I want one.
Yeah. I want a rainbow one. Yeah, me too. Hashtag. Well, see, I bought
Rah: it. So I threw TikTok all through lockdowns was when I first discovered that dice thing. I was like, Oh my God, I need it. But only ones I could find were too expensive. They weren't 5. I'm like, Oh my God. But I bought, uh, I think it's meant to be a kitchen timer and you turn the dial to like, same scenario, but it's different animals.
So I turn it to the chicken for 15 minutes, the duck, whatever, and then I just leave it. And then I had to stop using it for a bit because poor Daniel got really jack shit of every 20 minutes. Kitchen timer going off. Oh, I love it. If I'd known you could get that,
Jane: I would have
Christine: Yeah, No, but mine's hanging in the cupboard now because I do digital.
Seriously, I wish my washing machine had animal noises rather than the whistle that tells me to get off my arse and come and in. When it sings a song of its people for 20 minutes, I've got
Emily: the LG one and it's like a full song. So it's like, the kids sing it now too. They're like, washing's done! But my washing machine, when it
Christine: But I just I think it's telling me to fucking get off my ass and come and empty me and do the next load.
It's very rude. I'm gonna vomit. I'm the
Emily: opposite. I love doing my washing. I love being able to hang on the line. I'm like, yes, next load. Let's do this. She has a different style. She has a very different style.
Jane: Yes. I'm so very different. Yes. Style. Yeah. Putting air quotes around that. Yeah. So other tools and strategies.
Let's get back to you. Please. Yes. Ladies. Um, so outsourcing, , . Thank God we've got somebody who's keeping us on track. See, it's out. I've got the notes. Outsourcing, I've got the notes. Um, so outsourcing. So if there's things that I can't do, yeah, outsourcing's a great thing. Like maybe getting it cleaned to, to come in, you know, once a month or something like that.
I love a cleanup. Um, or even like having the, like total support of either family or your partner and just going, look, you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna be able to do this today. Um. You know, I need some help with or without ADHD. That's so important. Yeah. Yeah. So communication is key. So letting people know, and you know, if we were taking it back to the workplace, letting my clients know that I have ADHD and some things that I might need from them.
So whether it's a communication style, um, or, um, information given to me, it's visually rather than, um, you can
Emily: see why
Jane: that's so
Emily: not
Jane: the mold
Emily: for a corporate life and why so many people struggle with it because it's just, yeah. Unless you've got a union on the off chance you actually happen to have an amazing boss who would understand how that
Jane: works.
Well, you know, if you had a boss, maybe with ADHD, it would be. Exactly right. So yeah, I do take in information differently, um, than I guess the norm. But that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just is a more visual way of learning. Um, and then, um, then I can, yeah, easily put things into practice. So that's, that's good.
I think the other thing is, um, with ADHD is mainly the distraction, right? So the focus and distraction, like how do I quiet that noise? Um, and, yeah. Um, I do use noise cancelling headphones, uh, so that's something pretty important that, so that I don't get distracted. Do
Emily: you need something in your ears or do you just need the silence?
Jane: No, no, no, it definitely needs something in my ears. So, um, I listen to either brown music, uh, black music. Brown music? Is that what it's called? Brown or pink? There's white noise. White noise, that's it. Yep. So I listen to brown noise or pink noise. Pink noise is very fitting for you. Yeah, I find white noise.
Lady in pink over here. Yeah, the hertz are a little too high for me. Brown is much lower. Brown is like the deep roar of an airplane engine. Oh wow, because seriously, I'm this years old that I've never heard of those two terms. There's green as well. Wow. So they're just different, um, different hertz. I love the brown.
Do you find certain levels annoy you?
Emily: No. Cause like, I find if it's of a certain thing, especially if I'm really trying to concentrate Now we're diagnosing
Rah: M's and the HD levels. Yeah, like,
Emily: you know, little things like finding a car spot in a very busy, pumping car park, I'll literally turn the radio off.
Oh, I think doesn't everyone do that? That's very normal. And to reverse. Certain pitches I find actually agitate me. Oh, okay. Like I can't. I'm a bit like, no.
Jane: Oh. Can't do it. No, no, no. I find that's a bit tricky sometimes. You definitely need noise cancelling headphones. I do have some. Just for a different reason.
I've got some Apple ones. They're amazing. Um, and what's the other thing? Um, oh, I practice body doubling. Oh, what is that? Yeah, I do too. So, um.
Rah: What
Emily: do I not know
Rah: about this? What is this? So it's, it's. It's a sex thing. No, I'm joking. If it is, I definitely want to know about it. Does not involve what we were talking about.
It involves
Jane: another person, so that could be anybody. It literally just means that you are in a room with somebody else. So it's not, well, I'm not mimicking what they're doing.
Emily: Um, so I just,
Jane: I just. I have my husband sitting in my office sometimes so he's playing his computer game and that helps me work.
Just by having him present. I just have him present. So it's called body doubling and it tricks your brain to think that they're doing
Rah: the same thing as you. You know how you might do more housework when Chris is over? Or something like that or that's when I'm paranoid about how messy my house. Well, yeah.
Yeah. Yes, it's not Yeah, and
Jane: there's another trick that's a little bit a little odder But if you don't have that person around you can actually just sit your desk set your desk up in front of a mirror Almost you actually you know how I used to do it. I used to have put
Rah: myself in a zoom meeting with myself
Jane: See, there you go, you've been doing it without knowing you were doing it.
I
Rah: forgot I was still there and then God knows what people might be saying if that ever got out. I've done virtual body doublings. There you go. Yeah, but I've been doing it with like Sam, who we had on episode 3, 2, 1. Um, and a few other people. There's online websites where you can, of course, all websites are online,
Emily: right?
We've got
Rah: accountability, but then we've, um, there's a website, I've forgotten the name of it, but I'll put it in the show notes, where it's a bit like chat roulette. Yeah, where you just get randomly paired with someone and you work together and you say this is what I'm going to do for the next hour. My dad's
Emily: business, my dad in Tassie, they don't, they go in the office same as like everyone like two or three times a week.
Yeah. But they sit on teams. Everyone is on this, is on the chat. Yep, that's exactly it. And you can just jump in and out if you want. My, my mum's like, it's so weird. But dad's like, we just, if it's, you know, it's actually kind of like being in the office because they'll just unmute themselves being like, oh, you know, Nick, are you there?
Like, I need you for five seconds. And Nick will be like, yo, I'm here. Then they can go into a different room. But then Dad's like, if you just, like, you can get in and out. Like, there's no obligation to be there, but you can just jump in. This makes
Christine: it so sense. So I've had a client who did tell me that they had ADHD and I found it difficult getting They're part of the work, what I needed from them, um, to then do the work.
And I'd love to talk about more about how we would support working with you, for example. But the whole body doubling thing makes sense to me because every, not necessarily every week, but every second week, They wanted to be on a Zoom doing a block of time together. We weren't necessarily talking or I was doing my work for them and they were doing their own thing.
But that, I understand that now.
Jane: It's really actually very powerful for someone with ADHD. So um, I have, one of my clients has ADHD and I, even though I'm a virtual assistant, I'm lucky enough that they're in my hometown here in Newcastle. So I actually go in once a week and we work together and we smash out a lot of work together because they find it extremely difficult to, um, I guess verbalise, have things together that they need me to do and it's just, you know, um, while I'm there.
It's just so much easier. Yeah. So with having ADHD, you can, um, you can have something called, um, Oh, what's it called? It's like, it's out of sight, out of mind, basically. Oh, object impermanence type thing. Object impermanence. So, um, yeah, if I can't see it or I can't, you know, it's not on my calendar, which is why I have so many in the house.
Um, it doesn't exist. It's crazy. It's frustrating. It's awful. It's, you know, I've wondered what's wrong with me forever. Um, but now I realize I have object impermanence and so, uh, by working with my client, um, yeah, we, we can get so much more done together. Yeah. Yeah, no, it really, really works. There is benefit to
Christine: being in person.
Oh, there is. There really is. But I think, um, you know, like we, you know, learn about lots of personality types and you get to know, you know, yeah, how people operate and work. But I think this is so important, isn't it? To understand how, how to work with each other. You're under, you now understand and have all your bits and pieces in to know how you can work.
You also know how to work with somebody else with ADHD, but it's an educational piece for people like me. It's still very difficult. Oh, look, I don't want to say I can imagine, because I can't. But, you know, I do work with diagnosed and non diagnosed
Emily: minutes.
Christine: It's crazy over here. It's
Jane: fun, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.
Emily: I, I think, you know, too, I know I'm, I'm very manic and very chaotic and I come at you a million miles an hour sometimes, especially when I've got ideas in my head. And these guys were laughing because they know that all too well. Yep. The things I've wrote them into Um, and I think it's definitely been an adjustment for Chris to deal with my manic clothes.
Jane: But I would change those, that wording around what you just said about being manic and chaotic. I would say that you are passionate and excited. Absolutely,
Christine: Jane, I totally agree. And I'm, I'm all about words and it's like, you can't put yourself down there.
Emily: I know I constantly do it, but I do, I do love my chaos.
Yeah. Because I, You thrive on it, right? I really, really do. Man, the last time we came up here was for the beautiful Newcastle VA conf that I was here and poor Chris was sick and couldn't come. She got a full two hour phone call with me the entire drive up, multiple times throughout those days and then the entire two way home.
Absolutely. So she was on the phone for a good solid six and a half hours of that week. Oh my goodness. And because I'm
Christine: not a multitasker. Oh my God. I had to stop my life for that whole
Jane: thing because I focus on it, but you have to listen to me right now. You can still, I guess you could body double on the phone, right?
So I would have taken the opportunity to, I mean,
Rah: M& I body double cause we'll jump in a huddle on Slack to talk about. issue x or idea x and then suddenly we're just both going just working together and they go hey by the way what about this oh yeah fuck we should do that or then it's like i gotta go i gotta pee yeah is that
Jane: the first fuck dropped during the podcast oh fuck no i don't know i think i already dropped it i'm dropping i need to drop a little bit of well behaved i'm sorry about that i just noticed it was very clean very clean oh god no
Emily: we need to fix that very intense conversation well look what would you um what advice would you give people Any other women in the same boat that might think that they, that look, let's be honest, TikTok has created an entire bit of a trend about having ADHD.
Yeah, for sure. And I think there's been a lot of people out there going to get diagnosed that maybe don't need it. But what would you know
Jane: about that. Um, I would say, why would you bother to spend all of that money and spend, uh, you know, six months. six weeks of like weekly, um, uh, exams and things like that.
If you didn't, you know, feel strongly that you go and find your school reports,
Rah: get, I had my husband fill out a survey that took him 45 minutes, filled out a survey. So they, they, they dodged a bullet in that
Jane: sense.
Christine: No,
Jane: sorry. That was not meant to be like,
Rah: no, but I was like, yeah,
Christine: they didn't have to go
Emily: through that.
I haven't worked ahead and communicated. I was like, My brother reckons he's got it, but as soon as he mentioned it to my mum, she's like, no, you don't. And my little sister, my little sister's a doctor. And she was like, no, you don't. Yeah. And so he was like, Oh, I'm like, I said to him the other day, I reckon we both do to be honest mate.
But if we had to give them a survey, they'd be like, Oh, no.
Jane: Well, when I went to the doctor and asked if I could get a referral to go and get diagnosed, my doctor laughed at me out loud, very absolutely, very, um, spontaneously immediately said, no, you don't. that's silly. Um, and so I was, no, no, she's a woman about my age, younger.
So, um, so I was obviously very upset about that. She's no longer my doctor. Um, and it is because I present highly functioning for sure. Like I don't go
Rah: into
Jane: a doctor and act like a lunatic. I'm usually there because I'm unwell. So, um, yeah, That was, yeah, that was, um, it's difficult to get diagnosed. So I don't think that if you just want to have ADHD, you would go through with it.
I mean, my parents, no, and my parents did have to fill out the forms. And the last question on the list was, do you know anyone with ADHD? And my mom wrote no. And my dad wrote yes. Oh, thinking about me. Oh, I didn't think about you. Oh, I'm about you! Isn't that interesting? So not everyone in your life is going to get on board because they think, again, that it's the 8 year old little boy who has ADHD or, you know, a woman that, um, you know, has her own business and is, you know, quite successful, you know, running the business.
Yeah, and the life and, you know, carries on, a family and good sister and, you know, all of that sort of thing. So, yeah, so I would just advise somebody to, if they feel this way, to go and get diagnosed. If, if for anything, just to give yourself clarity about who you are. Yep. Cause I cried when I got my diagnosis.
Yeah. So did I. It was like such a relief.
Rah: Yeah. All the struggle cause mine has manifested or become more obvious to me. A, because I've been exposed to TikTok and other people like having conversations with people like you Jane of going, Oh shit, maybe I do have it as well. But also. Having started working for myself because that pressure's been taken off.
Mm-Hmm. . Because working for someone else, you're like, fuck. Yep. Have to go and do stuff. That's what people please into
Emily: though.
Rah: Well, there's that too. But also the fear of like losing a job or whatever. But then I think as well, I think hormonal changes as I'm getting older. I don't know. Fuck yes.
Jane: No, that is, it's true.
Yeah. Great. You'll lose dopamine. Good to know. And you'll lose, um. Is it serotonin? One of those ones? Yeah, probably. Less of, um, and suddenly, so the coping mechanisms that you did have beforehand are now completely depleted. Yeah. They're gone. Like, you can't even mask anymore. Yeah, and so over the last couple
Rah: of years is when I've really noticed it and, like, you know, Going through other avenues of going.
Well, I don't need a diagnosis and I don't think I want medication for my ADHD However, I will work with a mindset coach. And so that's who I'm working with at the moment. And so that's been great Yeah,
Jane: that's brilliant. But
Rah: still I've realized because I'm seeing the other people and Cause I'm, I know them now before and after and I'm like, Oh, I need that.
Yep. Yeah. Cause I'm like, it's going to earn its money. Like I'm going to make more money because of it.
Jane: Yeah. Look, you, um, there's pros and cons to being medicated and I've been both. Um, so you will just find, find it yourself. You'll work out what works for you. Um, and that's what I was saying before about it being a long road and it's a continuous long road because, you know, taking, um, ADHD medication, something like, um, Diaz, uh, God, what's it called?
No, not diazepam, that's lovely, that's Valium. So, yeah, I've had that for
Christine: my back, it's for fabulous. Dexamphetamines,
Jane: is what I was trying to say. Oh, yeah, it's Dexies, that's right. I'm like, oh,
Rah: like midnight runners.
Jane: Yeah, so you only have a life of around three or four hours in your body, so you do actually wake up ADHD again.
Yep. Nothing Yeah. Use that longer acting version. So yeah, there's a few longer acting ones, but I would, I would actually say that they're actually only, you know, 24 hours. So you're still waking up in the morning with ADHD. So yeah, it's a daily, it's a daily conversation to have with yourself about whether or not you, what you've got on for the day, whether or not you want a little break, you know, cause it's exhausting being super productive from someone that, you know, you know, you isn't super productive.
Rah: It takes so much brain power. It does, yeah. I think we could
Christine: keep talking on forever. Fascinating conversation. Absolutely, but I've got a final question for you, Jane. Oh my goodness,
Emily: yep.
Christine: I've got a box. Same one. I've got a box. We have pre prepared this box for you. And it contains What colour is your box?
It's pink. Really? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. If it's Chris box it's pink. Well if it's mine it's totally different. But it's your box. Oh great. It's your box, Jane. What colour is your box, Jane? That's right. And your box contains all the things Whatever they are, you know, not people, not anything, it can be anything.
It could be people, could be a thing, could be a memory, could be a something. But all the things you've lost in your life up to this point in time, what could be the one thing that you would like to take out of your box?
Jane: Um, well, I, something came immediately to mind, which is super random. Um, you know, Looking back, I would probably, you know, like my grandparents and things like that.
But honestly, um, it is my sense of smell. So, when I was in my twenties, I, um, had a car accident and lost my sense of smell. Um, and it's called anosmia. Um, it's actually much more, um, Popular, I was going to say. Common? It's a trend. Yeah. It's much more common than people realise. A lot of people actually have miosmia, which is where they can't smell ranges of things, or particular things, and they can go through life and not actually know that they have it.
But I actually have the full thing, so I can't, I can't smell anything, so that's been around 20 years or so. Wow. It's just a trend. I have a love to not smell,
Emily: I'll tell you. I've got the word, like, I'm a really hyper sensitive sense of smell, it's a problem. My husband, I'm always in my house being like, what's that smell?
And he's like, I can't smell anything! And I'm like, people might come in and smell things in my house! But like, I don't know. Smelly,
Christine: smell relates to emotions. Well it is, isn't it? Obviously. Lack of
Jane: smell,
Christine: associated with the lack
Jane: of taste. Uh, it does affect it somewhat. Yeah. So, um, I think I compensate with that by liking, like, really strong foods.
Yes. Like red wine, and anchovies, and spice. Yes. I feel like you up
Emily: with a whole bunch of things and be like, can you taste this? Yeah, I know. Taste test with Jane. When I
Jane: did go to the specialist, he was putting things under my nose. Um, to see if I could smell it. And he, there was the one thing in the box that was left.
And he's like, okay, I'll give this one a go. Put it under my nose and said, can you smell that? I said, no. He said, no. Are you sure? Surely you can. I'm like, uh, no, I can't. I have no idea what it was. I know. Um, clearly it was something really wicked. Baby poop. I was
Christine: thinking that. I was hoping it was like, you know, a peppermint or something like
Jane: that.
Um, but I do have lovely support of my family. So, um, they tend to, if we're walking past a bakery or a coffee shop, we'll say, Oh, the bread here smells amazing. Or, wow, you should smell this coffee or it's raining now. And you can smell the tarmac, you know, the smell of the rain from the tarmac. with them what some
Emily: fish it's like, Oh my God, the coffee smells.
I totally do that. I
Jane: haven't, I, um, just had a new client. He's a coffee roaster. And so, so
Emily: she
Jane: said, someone said, Oh, the coffee. We're roasting right now. You can smell it. And I was like, Mm hmm.
Emily: It's a long
Jane: conversation when you do tell people finally, but you know, I'm, um, I'm still thriving. I
Christine: really do. Thank you, Jane. Seriously. Thank you for joining us today. Where are we today? We're in the new, City of Newcastle
Rah: Digital Library, who knew that there were two different libraries and we almost went to the wrong one.
We almost did. for having me. That was really fun. Amazing. And where can people find you and all the things that you do? So the Jane edit is at.
Jane: So if you're looking for virtual assistant services, the Jane edit, which is www. thejaneedit. com. Um, I also also offer mentoring for virtual assistants. If they're after any support on growing their business or things around mindset and things like that, because I'm also a trained and qualified counsellor, so I love helping other VAs or other women in business succeed.
Fabulous. Brain thinker. So every time we have a conversation, I'm like,
Rah: Oh, yeah,
Jane: that's great.
Rah: And
Jane: for anyone who's a
Rah: VA
Jane: in
Rah: the Hunter area.
Jane: Yes. So, um, like I said, we've got a really beautiful community up here in Newcastle of virtual assistants. So we are the Newcastle virtual assistants. Uh, we are at www.
newcastlevirtualassistants. com. And we have in person coffee catch up. So anyone in the Hunter, Port Stephens, Central Coast area are all welcome to join us. For a nice laugh, some advice and some support.
Christine: Oh, fantastic. We're going to put all of that in the show. No, absolutely.
Jane: Thank you for joining us.
Amazing.
Rah: And we'll talk to everybody next time.
