Author: Sophie Messager

Since I got diagnosed with ADHD last year, one of the most positive aspects is that I’ve stopped beating myself up about certain things I’ve never been good at. For example, I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I cannot function at my best without external accountability.

How I create accountability for myself

When I work for clients it’s easy. I love to help people and to be of service. To help someone I can research things endlessly, and it feels both purposeful and effortless. However, making things happen in my business on a day to day basis, in particular back of house stuff like updating my website, or endless admin tasks, is very difficult for me to do. I procrastinate often, and the undone tasks weigh on my mind.

Over the last few years, I’ve learnt to create external deadlines for serving people. For example, I regularly create webinars or courses, then I’m in the energy of service and it makes everything much easier to do, even doing the many admin tasks that go with it.

But I cannot create this for myself every single day. However, since exploring what ADHD is about, I learnt why body doubling is extremely helpful for neurodivergent people to overcome getting challenging tasks done.

Using body doubling/co-working apps

For the last 3 years I have used Focusmate, a coworking app that connects you via video to people across the world, where you spend a couple of minutes speaking your intentions for the session, and then co-working silently whilst remaining on video, so you have external accountability. Business mentor George Kao introduced me to this app in 2021. I was sceptical at first, but I tried the free 3 sessions per week, and it made such a difference to my work that week that I immediately signed up (it’s only about $5 a month).  I’ve been using it ever since, and my review of 2023 from the app tells me that I did 233 sessions with 210 partners from 41 different countries. I’ve met some pretty cool people in the process too.

Focusmate explains how it works:

“Body doubling is working on any task with another person present, without them participating in your task. The presence (in real life or virtual) of another person who is also trying to focus on their own task helps you stay on track and get things done. Additionally, it boosts your motivation, making the task at hand more enjoyable and achievable.”

In late 2023 I was awarded an Access to work Grant, which is a government grant to support people with disabilities (more on that in a different post). As part of my grant I got introduced to another co-working app called Flown. When it was suggested by the disability agency supporting me through my grant application, I did not see the point at first as I was getting on really well with Focusmate. However, I decided to give it a try and I’m really glad I did. Flown is a completely different ball game, because the sessions are group based and facilitated by paid facilitators. And contrary to Focusmate which only offers 25 or 50 min focus sessions, Flown has sessions ranging from 30 min to 2h. I like the 2h session, and often use 2 of these in the morning, which is my best time to focus on deep work. There also seems to be more Europeans on Flown, because it’s based in the UK, which means more sessions available when I prefer to work.

Flown is more expensive than Focusmate, but it’s soo worth it. Last week I attended a review of the month for January within the app. Within an hour, I’d reviewed January AND planned what I needed to do in February, and it was super easy and fun. I’ve always had resistance to doing this, and in the past I used to pay £50 a month to be within a group where a similar session was facilitated. 

Flown costs from £20 a month (£15 if you pay yearly, and you can even get lifetime membership which is what I got). You can try it for a month for free, and if you choose to join, you can use my affiliate link to get 20% off).

Small business accountability groups

The above helps with day to day stuff (and I’ve seen that Flown even offers review of the year sessions), but for the overall business planning/goals, and growing my business, I’ve learnt that I do better within a small group container run by a business coach. 

I’m working with a new business coach this year called Caroline Leon. I decided to switch after 3 years working with another amazing business mentor called George Kao. There were several reasons for this: George is in the US and the sessions were late in the day for my liking ( I’m a morning person and focus much better early in the day). I also wanted to work within a smaller group.

By taking part in small group coaching in the past, I’ve learnt that I achieve better results within the container of a small group of people. In early 2023 I was inside such a small group with healer Rebecca Wright, and I had the most successful financial month that I’d had since I started self employment 11 years ago. So I knew that, if I was going to grow my business, I needed to invest in such a group. 

I took Caroline’s business planning workshop in December to see if I liked her. It was affordable at £50, and I really liked her approach. I’ve been in her mastermind group since the January and I’m liking her approach, the pace of the work, and the type of people she attracts (heart based solopreneurs like me,). The group is full of coaches, massage therapists and healers. I love Caroline’s no nonsense bottom up approach (for example the first task she’s encouraged us to do is to draft an ideal weekly working schedule- something I’ve dabbled in doing but still felt resistance to because it makes me feel constrained). The fact is that, if we do not decide what we want to prioritise in our business, then our clients often dictate it for us.

Thanks to Caroline and a co-working session we did this week, for the first time in 11 years I’ve created a rough business plan for this year. I’ve written down how much I plan to earn AND broken down each of my offerings and how much of the income each one will represent.  I made a mind map drawing about it using water colours- because I find using a creative process helps me put some fun in tasks that I otherwise find dry and difficult to do. 

Over the last 3 years my main source of income has been my online courses, but this year I also want to offer one to one mentoring for women through life transitions, in a doula style model (working with me for a minimum of 3 months with regular calls) , and also start offering a small group program. I’ll be offering taster sessions at a reduced cost soon and also running free interviews about the group program, so feel free to message me to register interest if you would be interested in taking part in these.

The above covers the practical stuff, and I want to mention the emotional stuff as well.

Managing emotions

Procrastination is about emotions, and feeling discomfort about starting something we don’t want to do (overwhelm being a common issue for ADHD people). So addressing the emotions is an important part of the equation. A couple of years ago I took a course called Doodle your emotions, and it gave me an amazing tool to coach myself through difficult emotions. 

Here’s an example of a doodle I made when I did not want to start a task and it felt overwhelming. It took me all of 10 minutes to shift the discomfort and finally get started.

Now, with my access to work grant I’m getting ADHD coaching all year for free as well which I know will make an enormous difference. My coach will hopefully help me understand my emotions and put things in place to overcome challenges.

Emotional dysregulation is a big part of being neurodivergent, and when running a business, you cannot fix this with systems that tackle the “doing” without tackling what’s doing on inside. I spent years for example thinking that if I found the right planning diary (I bought many different ones) all my business and procrastination problems would be solved. Not only it never worked, but it also contributed to feelings of inadequacy and shame.

Changing consciousness and mood with drumbeats

I’m writing a book about how drumming supports women through birth and life transitions, in my research for it I’ve found drummer Jeff Strong. He’s got ADHD and in his book, Different Drummer, he describes how certain drum rhythms can positively affect both mood and focus. I signed up for the free trial of his app, Brain Stim Audio, this week and the results are amazing. It feels as effective as taking ADHD meds for me. And this is from someone who normally cannot work to music because it distracts me too much.

Giving myself permission to rest

Finally, some days I’m just not feeling it and I’ve learnt that, when I resist my body’s need for rest (I still find it challenging to do this, as I carry some shame about not being productive all of the time), I pay the price dearly, because what happens is that I don’t achieve anything and I also don’t give myself the permission to rest. Then I feel crappy & annoyed at myself. I first learnt about it when I was still having a predictable menstrual cycle (link to blog), and then more recently (other blog). 

I call it a f*ck it day. When I give myself the gift of rest, I often rebound very quickly afterwards, whereas when I don’t do that, the low energy often drags on for days.

Does any of this resonate? Do you find overcoming procrastination challenging? What have you found helpful? Please comment below.