ADHD Adults Who Want Less Overwhelm Need These 5 Delegation Tips

DESCRIPTION:

You probably have more on your plate right now than you can do by yourself. And, though you may know that delegating can help you manage your workload, you may not delegate as much as you’d like right now. Learn about your challenges, including those related to your ADHD, and how you can address them. So you can start delegating better.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• You may not be able to do all the tasks you consider important and meaningful by yourself right now.
• Delegating is one way to address this challenge.
• Yet, in part because of your ADHD, you may not have the skills to delegate as well as you would like.
• Learn what these skills are and what you can to do to delegate better.

TRANSCRIPT:

(00:01):

Like many ADHD adults, you may not delegate as much as you would like right now. There are likely a few reasons for this, some of which, of course, may be related to your ADHD challenges. But, if you want to turn this around, you can. Ready to see how?

(00:18):

You’ve tuned into Scattered Focused, Done – Reimagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD adults, like you, who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins and I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey to re-imagining productivity with ADHD. So you can get what is important to you done without trying to do it like everyone else.

(00:52):

When you think of all the work you need to do, whether professional or personal, you may wonder how you’re going to get it all done. You may even be dispirited and overwhelmed by all the work on your plate right now. As a result, you might be procrastinating in part because you have no clue how you’re going to tackle what may feel like a tsunami of tasks. Alternatively, you may be doubling down, trying to work harder and longer, maybe even faster.

In either case, the work keeps on coming and you may not feel like you’re making any headway.

One of the reasons for this is you likely can’t do everything you need to do, at least not by yourself. At this point, you may be thinking, “That’s not very helpful, Marla, I have to get everything done.”

Stick with me for a bit. Because that’s actually the good news. Because, once you acknowledge and accept you can’t do everything you’re trying to do now, you can start making decisions about what you’re going to defer, drop all together, put on your maybe someday list, which is a list of things you have no intention of doing. But also don’t want to forget.

Alternatively, you may be able to make decisions about, yes, what to delegate, which is the topic of this podcast.

(02:17):

But right now, when thinking about all your work, the question you probably ask yourself is, “How am I going to get all my work done.” To start thinking about delegating, the better question to ask is, “How is all the work I’m responsible for completing going to get done?” Notice the focus of the second question is on how the work is going to get done, not necessarily on how you are going to do it by yourself. And phrasing it this way may allow you to think more expansively about the possibilities of, yes, how it will get done.

But, of course, when you delegate, you are still ultimately responsible for making sure it gets done successfully, as illustrated in this definition. Delegating is assigning responsibility and authority to someone in order to complete a clearly defined and agreed upon task while retaining ultimate responsibility for its success. I know that’s a mouthful and I’ll dig more into the definition as I go along.

(03:38):

Before I do that, though, I want to point out that, like many, you may tend to think of delegating as something that people, primarily those who manage others, do at work. Because they are the ones who have the authority and responsibility to decide what work their direct reports do.

And, if you are a manager, and are not delegating as well as you would like right now, you may want to upgrade your skills. But whether you are a manager or not, well the process may be different depending on the context, there are also other places in your life you could delegate tasks.

For example, if you’re a volunteering for an organization and leading a team, you may be responsible for making sure the project gets done, of course. And, though you may frame it in terms of asking for help or discussing how to divvy up the responsibilities, you still are delegating.

Another place you may delegate is at home, of course. Maybe you hire someone to put in new lighting in your living room or paint the kitchen. You agree on what needs to be done. But you still need to follow up to make sure it gets done the way you want, right? Whatever the context, you are enlisting other people to help you get done what you determine is important to do. You’re delegating.

(05:06):

And delegating is definitely one of the skills that as an ADHD adult you need to have in your toolbox to be successful in following through on what you decide is important and meaningful to you.

One reason is you likely can’t do everything you decide is important to you and that you want to get done. At least, as I said before, not by yourself. Because, like everyone else, you have a limited capacity, right? So, you inevitably need to decide what you’re not going to do. So that you have the time and energy to focus on what you decide only you can or want to do.

(05:52)

Beyond the obvious of your limited capacity, you might decide to delegate because you just don’t have the expertise. And somebody else could really do the task better. Sure, you may decide to follow a YouTube video to fix the kitchen sink because you’re curious. And think it might be interesting to do. Or you may hire a plumber because you decide it’s really just not worth your time and energy to figure it out. No wrong answer here.

(06:20)

And, because your ADHD nervous system is interest-based, rather than importance based, it is just easier for you to follow through on task that interests you, right? Because of this, you may decide also to delegate those tasks that are just not intrinsically interesting to you. Because you know it will be harder for you to follow through on these tasks. Think of handing off your taxes to your accountant or tax preparer as an example.

And, if you manage people, you may delegate, not only to share the workload of course. But also to help the people on your team develop their skills as well as build a culture of trust among the team members. That is, you may delegate to make sure everyone feels valued for their contribution.

(07:17):

And though you may already be well aware of all these reasons to delegate and may even want to delegate more, your ADHD challenges related to the executive functioning skills needed to delegate may be making it hard for you to do it in practice. So you may need to work on upgrading these skills to be able to delegate better.

One of these skills areas is making decisions. Think about it. You need to decide what to delegate, how to delegate, how to best follow up and more. That’s a lot to be sure.

Another skill area you may need to work on is planning. As of course, you need to plan well enough ahead to hand off the tasks so that others have enough time to do the work.

So, if you’re not delegating now and trying to do too much of the work on your own, at least in part, it may be because of the challenges that you have in these two skill areas, planning and decision making. If that’s the case, you may need support in upgrading these skills to be able to delegate better.

(08:32):

Another reason delegating may be challenging for you is because you feel the need to prove yourself. This may be because you have feelings of shame like you are just not good enough. And these feelings may have at least in part, have arisen from your long history of ADHD challenges. So to prove yourself and to others that you are good enough, you may agree to take on projects at work. Without even thinking about the possibility of delegating or, if the decision isn’t solely up to you, negotiating how tasks could be handed off to someone else. Even though you have way too much on your plate. And really have no idea how you’re going to handle the additional work.

Of course, then you probably become even more overwhelmed when you take on this work. And may end up procrastinating, which can leave you feeling even more ashamed when you don’t deliver on your promises. It can get even more wonky. As you may become angry and frustrated at the person who asked you to do the task in the first place.

You get it. Trying to prove yourself by taking on too much instead of sharing the workload or trying to share the workload by delegating can obviously backfire.

(09:59):

Of course, if you decide to delegate, you need to do enough planning or as I call it, upfront thinking, to be able to provide clear instructions about the what the ultimate deliverable should look like. And you might also need to take out time to answer any follow up questions as they execute on the task. Yes, I know this is probably obvious to you already.

But you may also be reticent to delegate right now because you’re thinking to yourself about a task, “This is going take too much time and it’s just too complicated to explain to someone else. I might as well just do it myself.”

What you’re probably not thinking about is how it might make it easier and save you time in the long run. In part, this may be because for ADHD adults, there is now and not now. Consequently, you may not be future oriented enough to think about the benefits down the road. You’re just thinking about how much time and energy it’ll take you to delegate right now.

And, no doubt, sometimes, at least in the short run, it may be easier for you to do certain tasks yourself. But it may also be easier and save you time eventually if you could develop the competencies of another person to take over a task. So that it doesn’t fall on just you to do it, right?

(11:37):

While I’m sure there are other reasons you may not be delegating right now, the last reason I’ll share with you is that you may be reticent to delegate because you’re simply afraid others won’t do the work the way you want. And then you’ll just end up having to do it all over. Sound familiar?

No doubt, there are certain aspects of tasks you might need done in a certain way. And, for sure, for this to happen, you’ll need to communicate your expectations clearly and follow up as frequently as the task requires. After all, again, remember, delegating doesn’t mean you’re totally free of the task.

But when delegating, you might also need to be willing to loosen the reins a little bit. That is, as much as you can you’ll need to let the person you’re delegating to have a say in how they do the task, as well as what the finished product will look like. This willingness to let go is especially true if you know you have perfectionist tendencies.

No doubt, there are trade-offs when delegating. But you can’t have total control if you want to share the workload.

(12:56):

That was a lot. I know.

So, to summarize, you may choose to delegate to save time. Or because somebody else has more expertise than you do. Then again, you may delegate because you’re just not interested in doing the task. And, if you manage people, you may also delegate to help others build their skills. As well as develop trust among the people on your team.

Yet, despite, perhaps, wanting to delegate, you may be reticent to do so for some of the reasons I shared with you. Including those related to your ADHD challenges. And you’ll need to address these challenges, of course, along the way to becoming better at delegating.

(13:43):

So, where would you like to start delegating more? And, if you know what’s holding you back, what could you do including, maybe seeking support, to address these challenges?

(13:55):

That’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me and stayed until the very end. If you’re interested in learning more about my work with adults with ADHD, please do check out my website, marlacummins.com. Of course, if you’ve learned a thing or two from today’s podcast, which I hope you have, of course, please pass along the link to anyone else in your circles you think might also benefit. And, until next time, this has been Scattered, Focused, Done. And I’m Marla Cummins, wishing you all the very best on your journey to reimagining productivity with ADHD.