A graphic of a man smiling into camera, guest, Ian Anderson Gray
Episode 321 – The secrets of organisation when you have ADHD with Ian Anderson Gray

A few years ago Ian Anderson Gray was diagnosed as having ADHD and since then has taken steps to create process and structure in his life that has helped him tremendously. In today’s podcast we’re going to delve into his world and discover how simplification and organisation has led to a real breakthrough for himself and his family.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
Ian Anderson Gray helps entrepreneurs to improve their impact, authority and profits by using video and podcasting confidently. A few years ago, he was diagnosed as having ADHD, and since then, has taken steps to create process and structure in his life that has helped him tremendously. In today's podcast, we're going to delve into his world and discover how simplification an organization has led to a real breakthrough for himself and his family.

00:35
You're listening to the declutterhub podcast bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here's your host, Lesley Spellman,

00:58
hello and welcome listeners. I'm Lesley. We're delighted you're here to join us as part of your decluttering journey. So whether you're brand new today or have been listening for ages, we want to say thank you so much for being here. It means so much to Ingrid and I that you turn up every week to listen to and support us while we talk all things decluttering and organizing. We'd love to help more people with their quest for a clutter free home, and our podcast is a fantastic way for people to be inspired to take action. We have a favor to ask. If you like what you hear, be sure to hit the follow, subscribe or like button on your podcast player. Share us with your friends, or share your thoughts on the podcast by leaving a review. Ian, welcome so happy to see you here on the podcast now.

01:44
Thanks, Lesley,

01:45
we do know each other reasonably well. We've come across each other in a few different contexts. We've been to an event of yours. We've met you at loads of conferences, and you are, in fact, a clutter fairy client, and so there's loads of different ways. And we're coming to one of your events in a couple of weeks. And so we, we bump into each other, don't we businessy type things? Normally

02:07
we do. We do, yeah, in fact, I think the last time was, was up in the northeast, at Atomicon, and we had that, we had a chat about, well, about podcasts and decluttering and ADHD and going down lots of rabbit holes. I think, yeah,

02:21
definitely, probably after a little bit of wine, no doubt, as is England. But yeah, I think that. So it's fair to say you're a little bit of a sort of techie, geeky person who loves podcasting, but you also like to strip it down, back to basics for people as well. So you like to take the complicated world of tech for entrepreneurs like Ingrid and I, and make it simpler.

02:46
Yeah, I think, I think that's a big passion of mine, because, although, yes, as you said, I am a bit of a geek, and these days that that is actually not a put down at school, it was, but these days, it's quite a cool thing to be a geek and but I remember at school, like there were, there were times when someone would explain something in an overly complicated way, and it really wound me up, because, like, I wouldn't necessarily understand what they were talking about, and I try and simplify it in my mind. I'm sure this is an ADHD thing, and I hate it when people kind of almost use their knowledge, their superior knowledge, as a way to kind of almost put people down. So I'm a big believer. Although I love technology and I go down rabbit holes with it, I try and simplify it for people, because I think it's so much of the technology that we might talk about today, like AI and all this kind of stuff. It's can be for a lot of people, quite scary, but once you get to use it. It's amazing, and it can help, help you in so many ways. And so that's a that's a massive thing in what I do. I think

03:48
absolutely, I think you're absolutely right that people, some people, like to mystify it, and like to keep it as their own. And actually, you say we should all be using this stuff, you know, Ingrid, and I can use it in the same way that you we just need to understand that. And it's almost like you need to allow yourself to go into that world and go, Okay, I'm actually going to spend a little bit of time learning about this, but there's more to you than ADHD and tech. So tell us a little about Ian Anderson Gray, the person, oh,

04:18
my goodness. Well, I'll try, and I'll try and keep it, you know, not too long, but music's a massive part of my life. I my mom was an opera singer, and so like growing up, music was huge part. I of Eliza. I played the cello, the piano. I used to love to kind of compose music. And although I was quite shy and introverted. I did love to perform, because it's this way of communicating to an audience. I love to communicate, whether it's emotions or through the music and musicality and stuff like that. So music's a big part of my life, and I married a musician, Helen. So we actually met at the Royal Northern College of Music. I was studying singing there, so I was doing vocal performance, and she was doing french horn, and then she ended up doing a PhD in composition, like you do. And we, we kind of we met, we were really good friends. And after about six years, we kind of finally realized, oh yeah, I think we do quite like each other. And that was that. And then obviously we, you know, well, our kids are very musical as well, so it's a huge part of our lives, music, I think. But so there's so there's that, and and then i in terms of my business, I mean, it was weird the way that happened. I mean, I was I was singing professionally. I was teaching singing, but I was always interested in technology, and so I set up a web business, designed websites for musicians. Quickly realized musicians don't really have any money, so that wasn't a good business idea. But then I started blogging, and it was really through the blogging that I started to connect with people in the in the kind of social media and business world. And I got asked, got asked us to speak at conferences. I ended up speaking at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, and I realized, oh, okay, I suppose I am an entrepreneur. Now. I have to think about running my own business and juggling that with being a musician and thinking about my identity and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I'm a big mix of lots of different things. Like I think most of us are, we have lots of interests, but I think with what I do, I definitely mix my passions and my what I loved. LOVE doing my interests with my business. I find it, I don't know about you, Ingrid, but I find it very difficult to not make Turn, turn my interests and my hobbies into business opportunity. So that's kind of where I am today. And then, yeah, as you say, ADHD, I've kind of realized, well, I've been a realist for a long time, but it wasn't until three years ago that I went down that route of getting diagnosed with ADHD, and that's been a massive game changer.

07:05
So it's really interesting, because ADHD does often go hand in hand with the creative, the creativity that you're talking about so many people that have got that are artistic, music, all of those kind of things. It's it can be part of the territory, not exclusively, but it's definitely something that that happens. There's this extra little thing isn't there that happens and that that sits alongside that creativity. So, so what was it about what was happening to you at the time that led you to seek a diagnosis of ADHD, yeah,

07:38
so it's, it's kind of difficult to pinpoint, really, but there was, there was a few things like, I, I've always struggled with procrastination, for example. But the problem with procrastination is that, like everyone struggles with procrastination, to some degree. It's just that the chronic procrastination I was struggling from was kind of debilitating. I'll give you an example, like with my I knew that when I was writing my blog, for example, a lot of my blog posts were going viral. They were people loved what them, but could I actually write a blog post regularly? No, although I knew I needed to, and I just couldn't get into the zone. And so I had to wait until I got into that hyper focus state. And that would sometimes happen once a year or twice a year. Thankfully, when I got into that hyper focus state, I wrote these, like amazing blog posts, and they were so detailed and so so helpful to people, but I just got so frustrated with myself, so that. So there was that side of things, and then I suppose it was really realizing that there were all these kind of things that I would struggle with. And I didn't realize that was ADHD. I thought, I thought there was that was just the way I was just I thought maybe lots of people are like this, and I'd heard of ADHD, but I thought ADHD was all to do with just naughty boys just running around being hyperactive. And interestingly, as a kid, I was very hyperactive, but as an adult, I realized later on, what, after my diagnosis, that I'd kind of that had retreated into my brain, and that actually that hyperactivity was in my brain, and that was one of the reasons why afternoon naps rule, because it was the only way I could, like, press that reset button on my brain. So it was all of these, all of these things, all these struggles, and then I started to do a lot more reading about it. And thankfully, we're now in an age where there's so much more information, so much more understanding about ADHD. And I went to our local GP, and I spoke to them about it, and, you know, they weren't, they weren't dismissive, but they weren't particularly helpful, either. But the problem was like, how was I going to get diagnosed? And so I kept on putting it off, because it's a is a real pain. But in the end, I did get diagnosed. I chatted it through with Helen. She we, we were pretty sure that I was, I was ADHD. In fact, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's in the family. So we've since realized, oh my goodness, we're all ADHD. There's no hope.

10:16
It starts. It just doesn't, yeah,

10:19
yeah, yeah. So, so that that's, yeah, I mean, it's, that's a bit all over the place, but since, since getting diagnosed, I think what I've then realized is, okay, this is not just a recent thing. This is my whole life. I've actually, I can go back to my childhood. I can see how it has played a part, not all negatively. So in my podcast, I have a podcast that I've launched because, because, again, you know, I can't not make a business out of things, so I've got my smart ADHD podcast where we talk about this. And I'm not an expert, but I've, I've realized that there's so many, there's so many things with ADHD that can be either positive. Some people call them superpowers. I don't like that personally, but it's definitely contributed to my divergent thinking, thinking out of the box, problem solving, creativity, empathy, which isn't always a good thing. This can be such a thing as too much empathy, but those are all positives, but there's also lots of negatives as well, and what the diagnosis has given to me is it give me like those strategies of how to to actually help with all those negative things and actually enhance all those positive things. So that's been amazing. And actually probably the best thing about getting diagnosed is that it took away so much guilt. Because basically, if I can be truly honest with you now, I just thought I was lazy, and I thought I was lazy, I thought I was having all this imposter syndrome. I was comparing myself with others. I had very low self esteem, anxiety, depression. I don't want to depress all your listeners, but there were all these things that I was struggling with, and the realization that it's that ADHD that was contributing to all of those things was such a relief. Oh, I'm not lazy. I'm not lazy. Well, sometimes I'm lazy lazy, but that was just a game changer for me, realizing that that that was the reason. And now there is hope and there are strategies to actually help moving forwards, which was amazing. You

12:22
know what? Ian, that's such a great summing up. I think of, you know, it's what has been quite a long journey. And I want to just come back to a couple of the things, well, a few of the things, because there's a lot of gold dust in there, in terms of the the kind of the journey then through that. So a couple of things that you mentioned right at the beginning. So you talked a lot about chronic procrastination. And I think that's something where, you know, because there's so much spoken about ADHD and neurodiversity at the moment, that it can be, you can be forgiven for thinking, Oh, I'm a little bit like that. Oh, I forget things all the time. Or, you know, my mind wanders off. And I think it is that chronic, persistent, debilitating, used all those three terms. And so I think it's when it gets to a stage where it's really negatively impacting your life, that that's when it starts to be like you say all of the things that you just mentioned at the end. You know, there's kind of depression, anxiety, feeling lazy, feeling worthless, all of those things that come along with it. And so I think, you know, as a starting point, because there are many, many, you know, we've got many women listening to this podcast who are wondering whether or not they, I'm and I'm sure, wondering whether or not they potentially have ADHD or any other kind of neurodiverse condition. And so I think that that's really important to talk about that, and to talk about that chronic persistence and debilitating side of things. I wanted to sort of mention as well the fact that you talked about the hyperactivity of, you know, that kind of classic naughty boy syndrome that you talked about that we that we're all familiar with, certainly my generation, and that's what it was before, because adult ADHD, what is like 1013, years since diagnosis, it's very new, right? And so I think, you know, we didn't really understand it in an adult context at that point. I think it's really important to understand that hyperactivity. And I came across this with my son. I don't know whether you've listened to it, Ian, but I did a podcast with my son, who has ADHD, and he was diagnosed at about 2324 something like that. And he talks about that because I would not have considered him to be hyperactive, but it's the hyperactivity in his brain that continually never switching off. And like you say, I have in those afternoon naps. And so I think a lot of people who are thinking about this kind of stuff and at those early stages, and you do need to have to do some soul searching of your own before you start seeking a diagnosis and do your own research about what that feels like. But hyperactivity is not just about being hyperactive in a physical way. It's also about what's happening on the inside as well, isn't it? Well,

14:54
it is. And you know that this is, apparently, this is maybe a slightly an old fashioned way of of subdividing. People with ADHD, but it's still used a lot. And that is, there's you can be inattentive type, you can be hyperactive type, or you can be combined. And I thought, Well, I must be I must be inattentive because I'm not hyperactive at all. I have no problem. I'm not fiddling around or anything. I'm just sitting down talking to you. But in my mind, see, I wasn't aware of this. My mind is all over the place. It's and what, and I think I'd kind of push that back so I wasn't even aware of it. And that was that realization when I thought, oh, that's why I'm tired all the time, that's why I have to sleep a lot. That's why I have have to have those down times. And that was, that was fascinating. And you know, I keep saying this, I'm no expert on this. I'm learning like everyone else is, but you know what? The more I've looked into this, women tend to be much better at masking the symptoms. So women are tend to be there are fewer women that are diagnosed. It's changing now. But that's one one thing. And one one thing that I found very kind of upsetting is when people say to me, Well, you know, everyone struggles with that. You know, everyone struggles with procrastination, like, you know, we were talking about before. And yeah, that's true. And then they said, Well, maybe everyone's a bit ADHD. And that really wound me up, until I started to think, well, in one sense, that is is kind of correct in the sense that it is a scale, but it's only correct in the same way that somebody once said, Well, everyone has height. It doesn't kind of work like that. So, and actually, interestingly, ADHD has the same kind of I'm going to get this word wrong, inheritability. Is that a word anyway, the same as height, so your parents, you'll inherit your, you know, a lot of the height genes from your parents. You'll also inherit ADHD in this in the same kind of percentage, apparently. So, but, but, yeah, it's, it's, it is fascinating and but it is, thankfully, we are getting a lot more, a lot more knowledge about it, but there's a lot of people. There's still a lot of myths. And because it is, it's not mental health, I would say it's more of a neurological thing. It's my brain just works differently. But because it's that, people maybe are a little bit uncomfortable still even talking about it, which is a bit yeah,

17:35
and I think talk about that inheritability, because my kids, who are neurodivergent are sort of always looking at me and going, Yes, Mom, we inherited it depends on how much for me, you know. So do I feel that I've got inattentive and hyperactive, inattent, inattentive traits and a hyperactive brain 100% you just mean, but is it really affecting the way I do my day to day life? Maybe I've got really good at masking it, you know, so I do absolutely think I've got ADHD traits. For sure. I've no doubt I'm probably on that spectrum somewhere, but I'll probably never know where, because I'm not, it's not I don't find it debilitating to me. I just find it part of me, and that's because maybe I've learned over the years to mask that, and so it is quite interesting. But I think for so many people, Ian what it is, and you alluded to that at the end of when you were chatting about it, is that it's validating. And so to just have that feeling of, oh, actually, I'm not lazy, I'm not stupid, I'm not. This is not just normal. Do you know what I mean? This is the way my brain is is making me operate. And once you then have that validation, which is a huge step for so many people, then you can start to look at strategies to try and, you know, let your your day to day life, work with that, rather than against it all the time. You're not fighting against. Well, that's just the way I am. So what can I do to try and make things a little bit better, easier for myself? Then that

19:09
is, that is, that's the game changer, what some people might find, though. So I didn't struggle with this too much, but I know some people do, so I just wanted to mention that, and that is when you realize you have ADHD, if you've been diagnosed, some people will hark back to think, well, what if I'd known, if only I had known that I had ADHD, my life would have been so much better. And there's sometimes there can be anger. This is like perfectly normal. I didn't so much struggle with this myself, but I could do like it. You know, I go back to my time I moved up to Scotland because my parents job and I was bullied at school for having an English accent, and the school were just the look at you just need to look at my reports, you know, Ian, it gets easily distracted. Ian is there's one thing where Ian needs to try harder, but he does respond well to. Encouragement, you know, and I could, I could have gone back and said, Well, if only I'd known I wouldn't have had to go through all of that stuff. But it's to quicken my personality. I just don't, I just don't see the point. It's not going to help me to do that. But that's, I just want to mention that, because that is a kind of a common thing, but if you can get through that, and obviously, I'd always recommend you need to work with a professional, whether it's a therapist or an ADHD coach, or both, if you can get through that and think about the future, you don't have to sugarcoat things. I don't believe in sugarcoating things. Be real about it, but there are some real strengths and real power that can come from ADHD. You know, to talk to other divergent thinking, your creativity, and there is hope. There's so many things you can do to actually help as so much, so much that's been talked about these days, which is amazing. So there is always hope at the end of the tunnel. Absolutely,

20:55
you know. And I think just, you know, I've been a professional organizer 15 years, and I've, I've been working with, with people who, now retrospectively, as I look back and understand it more, absolutely had ADHD from the right, from the beginning, but I would never have raised that ever as a kind of, Oh, do you think that? Well, I couldn't, because it didn't have, there was no such thing as adult ADHD back back then. Well, it was, but it was a diagnosed condition, and so, you know, I couldn't have had those conversations. But now, you know, if I work with the clients and have that kind of relationship with them, or certainly our members, you know, that's something that I will suggest as like, Have you looked into it? I'm not, as you say, I'm no expert. You're no expert, but you can see things that are affecting people that may be something to do with that. And so it's nice that those lines of communication have opened that the people are not feeling, you know, it would have been a very negative, negatively associated with a lot of a few years ago, whereas now it's becoming much more part of life. And so that's it's a real big step forward. Do you know what I mean? So let's talk a little bit about what you did so you had your diagnosis. And thank you so much for explaining that so eloquently, really helpful. So what did you do? I know one of the things that you did, you talked already about working with an ADHD coach, but one of the things that you did was you contacted the clutter ferry, which is my business right, to help you in the home. So can you tell us a little bit about how a professional organizer helped you? Yeah,

22:20
well, I again, this is one of the with ADHD. The the people think, okay, hyperactivity. The other thing is disorganized, Mrs. Appointments, all that kind of stuff. Now, there is some truth in that, but I also want to say I can be hyper organized in certain situations, because it's to down to like, Am I really interested in this? And I go down this hyper focused thing. So the reason I want to mention that is that it's not to say that I'm not organized. If I'm if I'm doing a an event, if I'm producing a live event for a client, I'm hyper focused. I'm probably more organized than most people when it comes to that. However, when it comes to my office, my home, and, like for example, my my cables, and my, you know, my gear and all that kind of stuff I would sometimes it always happened that I would, I would need a particular adapter, and I couldn't find it, so I had to order it from Amazon. The next day, it comes from Amazon, and I find the one that I was looking for before. So I've now got two of that item, and then I'd get three and four. So I realized, for me, this was a big problem, and I'd come from, I was actually doing, I was producing live streaming an event in Newcastle, and I had this big box. I call it my big black box of doom, and it had loads of cables in it, and it was there, and I'd left it there for, like, months and months. And I think it was partly that that I realized I need to do something about this, because I'm not going to do it on my own, and I think we'd only just recently met, and I started talking to you about the idea of hiring, hiring a professional organizer. And part of me felt, this is a little bit, it feels a little bit kind of self indulgent. I'm just again. It's that feeling of, I'm just being lazy. Ian, like, just for goodness sake, just pull yourself together, tidy up your house. But talking to you, it kind of alleviated some of those kind of concerns that I had. And so I thought, Okay, I need to do it. Okay, Lesley sort me out. So you sorted me out. And Bev came to who's my declutterer came, and she's been absolutely amazing. So there was no judgment. I think I didn't I didn't think that I would be judged, but there was still in the back of my head this kind of worry, this fear that I was going to be judged, and that she would come in and say, Oh, this is awful. Ian, what have you done that? That's what was playing in my head. And of course, that doesn't happen. Bev, can. Came in, and she's all, this is fine. This is great. And and so in that first day, we did so much. And so you can see behind me, if you're watching, so obviously, if you're listening, I'll explain, but I've got that so callax unit, and so I didn't have that to begin with, but she basically helped me to kind of work out what I needed. So there's storage space. What you can see on the video, I've got some display units there, which are great for if I'm on video. But below that, I've got draws, I've got, like, filing cabinet pull outs, and I've got a whole system now for all of my cables and all of my adapters so that I know exactly where they are. I've got, I've got stored on my computer. I've got box a, box B, box C. So I just need to search, if I need, like, a particular cable, I search for that. Oh, it's in box C, so I take it out. And so we have a system. That's what Bev was able to do, was to come up with a system, and and also just to somebody there with me to actually go through all of these things, so that if I have lots of papers in my room to me, I can't actually start that. That's a motivational problem. That's absolutely an ADHD thing. But because she's there, we'll go through it together, and it's fun. Yeah, I will actually admit that it's actually fun. I really look forward to coming even though I be honest to begin with, I was quite anxious about it. But to me, I think anxiety is a huge part of it, because if I look at the huge, big pile of papers, I just can't deal with it. I just can't deal with it. And mail, for example, that comes through the door. I just, it just gets I mean, I have to admit, I have got, still got a little bit of a pile of mail behind me, but I know that Bev's coming and we can go together. But what Beth has taught me is she has taught me a little bit of self reliance in that it's systems. And she can't be, you know, if you, if you hire a professional organizer, they're not going to be with you every single day. So you need to have systems in place and and to make it really easy and simple. And so that's what we've we've done, and it's been brilliant. So that's it started, started in the office, and then it's, I've pushed it out to to the rest of the home, because I work from home. So it's kind of blended. You know, my work and my personal life are all kind of blended together. So in a sense, it's all part of my business, in a way. So yeah, that's how it all started. It's

27:36
so interesting a few things that, you know, because a lot of people do feel that about a professional organizer. There's there is an anxiety, and the anxiety comes from having been judged or self judged. Almost you're judging yourself as well. And so that's where the anxiety comes from. And people still think that your job as a professional organizer is, that is to throw things away, and, you know, to help or to help the person throw things away. And yes, that is, that is part of the process. Of course, we want less, and we can try and, you know, encourage you to have less, because that's helpful to towards simplification. But really, it is about creating this bespoke system for you, and trying to work out what's happening in Ian's head, and how can I create a system that's going to work for him? So the box a, box B, box C, sounds fantastic that while you're talking about it, I thought you we actually need to kind of subcontract you for the clutter ferry, because you clearly understand what the wires are, which is a bit of a professional organizer. We're like, no idea what these things even are. And so I think it's, it's creating that bespoke system. So, you know, putting it into a kind of standard house context, away from the tech, you know, we're going to create a very different system for a mum with three young kids than we are for a retired couple. You know, what they need, what they need in their hallway, in their kitchen, is going to be completely different. And so it's creating a bespoke system. And you can't do that for somebody. You have to do that with somebody, which is why it's really useful to have this kind of collaborative approach. What? What sort of other things have you so, obviously, your sort of technology and things. So you've created something where your working space looks great on video, you've got the right things. You can find them really easily. I know you do lots of events, and so you can take your box of doom, which is hopefully no longer a box of doom, after these events with you, and what about in the rest of the home? What sort of things have you created there that are helping the whole family? Yeah,

29:37
and just to say it's very much. I love what you said. It is an emotional thing. You know, particularly with those of us with ADHD, we're very highly emotional people. That's a neurological thing, the way that, because of our prefrontal cortex having less of a what do you call it a connection? We tend to kind of, I call it, we kind of delegate it to the Department of emotional affairs. Yeah, that's kind of what happens so and

30:02
definitely using that, or using

30:06
that, and I've, I've, in the past, you just mentioned something about chucking stuff away, I've gone the other route. So, like, I tend to either don't do anything, just leave it there to fester for, like, months and months and months, or I will go down a rabbit hole hyper focus, and I'll throw too much away. And there's stuff in the past that I've thrown away I really regret. There's I know it sounds silly, but I went on this world tour with the national youth choir when I was younger, and it had the whole itinerary of where we went. I shredded it. Why did I do that? I just because the anxiety was too much. So I just wanted to mention that, because that because that can be a problem, I think. And so actually, with with Bev, we went through things, and there were certain things that had sentimental attachments to them, we just left because they're more difficult to deal with. Let's, let's do the low hanging fruit first, and then we'd maybe kind of leave it for a little bit. So I love the way we approach things in a very kind of emotional way. And so moving out into the rest of the house, it was, it's a similar kind of thing that, because my business is is kind of merges into the rest of my life, in a way, the rest of the house, didn't they? The approach didn't have to change too much. But, for example, in my bedroom, I have, I've actually now got a suitcase where I put my travel thing, so I'm actually going into the US next week to give a workshop, and that always stresses me out. So what I've I've got now is a little, it's just a little carry on bag, but in it is all the stuff that I need for travel. So I've got, like, EU and US adapters. I've got what do you call them, packing cubes? I think that's what you call them. Things like that. I've got all the stuff in there so I'm not running around the house trying to find where everything is. So that's what that side of things? And then there's my wardrobe. So actually simplifying that, just having a system, for example, hanging up trousers is not going to happen, and that's for me, at least. And so actually working with Bev and saying, Bev saying, actually you don't need to hang them up. You could just roll them up and put them there. That's absolutely fine. That's really good. So whereas I do hang up my T shirts, that's not a problem. So you I think it's working out what works for you and working out a solution for that. Then there was the kitchen as well, just organizing things like vitamin pills or the tea drawer. I love drinking tea. So you should see, you might have actually seen my tea drawer because I posted it on social media. So I've got these little IKEA tins and Bev and I would actually go through. And one of the things I'm such a geek I love this is labeling things. So actually labeling the top of everything, I've become a convert, definitely with all of this. So everything's labeled. You start,

33:04
you never stop. Once you get a label maker, that's it.

33:08
And I think it was a blog post that you and Ingrid wrote, or I think this is so you were talking about, like, top kind of gadgets or something. It was something it was something like that. And I think you did mention, like, a label maker, yeah, but you also mentioned this, and this, this is, it sounds so simple, sounds so stupid, but it's one of those rollers to roll over your address on an envelope. So, like, one of the things we always do is we just have this massive pile of Amazon boxes, leftover Amazon boxes and, you know, envelopes with our address on, and because we don't want to just chuck that in the blue bin, you know, for recycling, because we're just concerned about, like, people getting our address. And what do you call it? Kind of fraud, or whatever? Yeah, we just left it there to fester again. You know, it's a big box of doom, kind of, or the corner of shame. And so just that little thing, it's, we've got it in Helen's office, which is just by the front door. We just pop in there, roll it, and then we can chuck it in the blue bin. Things like that really help this. There's so many things, but we've just, what we've done is we've tackled, you know, one room at a time. And Helen, my wife, she's she's a complete convert as well, so trying to find a system that works for her. So, I mean, I don't want to speak about my wife without her permission, but she has her brain works slightly differently when it comes to things, but she's like me in that mail is a problem, so it will just sit there. But if we have a system that works, so she had this kind of set of four trays, like, it's kind of an in tray, but there were four of them, it just wasn't working, because they would just end up being piled there. So simplified that system. We've got a shredder in her office so you don't have to go somewhere else. It's all there. And those. Things really help as well. There's so much more I could share, but those are just a few things

35:04
that's fantastic. I think, you know, it's all about just taking a step back from it and thinking about, what do I find difficult and what's not working for me? If you can start there, you know, because there are so many systems in people's homes that are working, so as professional organizers, we will kind of be like, what works well, what doesn't work well, those, you know, the things that don't work well, that's what we need to fix, and we need to start. And sometimes you can put sort of processes in place, and it doesn't work, and then you have to, you have to be kind of willing to go, right? Let's change it up a little bit. And so that's what it's all about. I absolutely love it so much gold dust in this Ian, so we're going to go for a little break. We're back after the break for more from Ian. Welcome back. Thank you so much to Ian for sharing his ADHD may as well start again. Welcome back from the break, and thank you so much Ian for sharing so much gold dust, actually, about your ADHD journey and your journey with Bev, my lovely clutter fairy, and how the processes in your home have really changed since you started trying to think about how things could work better for you and for the rest of your family. Now we've already mentioned the fact that you are entrepreneur, a speaker, a geeky person, a tech person, a musician, all of those things. And so all of those things that you're talking about take some organization. And so you've mentioned already that you're more organized with work, but I know that there are things that you use and tools that you use that help you. So let's talk a little bit about that part of your working life, and how you keep everything that you've got to do in check?

36:44
Yeah, well, so I have my own system. I use my own tools, but for you, listening or watching, you don't have to use the same tools as what I use. You've got to find a system that works for you. So now I'm going to use a word now which will either send shivers down your spine in a good way, or you'll be wanting to run a mile. And that's the word AI, which I'm using a lot at the moment, and I it doesn't have to be scary. So what you can do now you may have heard of chatgpt, which is this tool. It's free. I actually pay for it, but most of the stuff that you can use with it is free. And so you mentioned Lesley, like you find a cable or an adapter, you think, what on earth is that I have no idea what that is? Well, you can take a picture of that, upload that to chatgpt, and it'll tell you what it is. It there's also Google lens, is another example. So you can just take a picture of that. What is this? It will take a picture and it will tell you what that is. If you have a plant or there's a weed or something outside, you can take a picture of that and it will tell you what it is. So that's really good. In terms of organization, you know immediately what it is. And this is scary with chat GPT, you can take a picture of the inside of your fridge and say what's in my fridge, and it will actually tell you what's in your fridge. So I did it once, and it was said, Well, you have a some Philadelphia cheese on the second shelf, and you have some broccoli. And I said, Well, can you make a can you make some meal? Meal ideas from that? And it did. So there's some really interesting ways you can use tools to help you from a from a so we've talked mainly about decluttering your home in this episode, which is, which is the main thing, and that interestingly, goes a long way to declutter my mind. It's kind of weird in front of my desk if I need to do some really creative work, if my if my office is a mess, I'm going to really struggle to focus. So having this really lovely, organized office really helps with that. But what about if you're just your mind is just really cluttered anyway? Well, again, this is where the likes of chat GPT can really help. So I was I dropped my daughter off at a choir rehearsal in Manchester, and I was coming back, I had a half hour journey back, so I plugged my phone in through the speakers, and I had a little chat with chatgpt. And so I had all these ideas buzzing around in my head. And so I started talking. I said, Okay, I've got all of these ideas that I need to remember. Can you put them into some kind of order for me? And what I was saying was absolute gibberish. I mean, if I said them all to you, Lesley, you think What on earth was all that about? But that was I was basically

39:32
downloading my mind works as well. It would be perfectly fine. Well,

39:38
okay, but, but put it this way, it wasn't. It wasn't in an organized state in my mind, and I was trying to put it all together. Chat GPT, then just replied to me having a conversation, and it got it all in an order. I said, Oh, yeah, that's great. What about this? If? What if I was to do this and that, and then it would reply, and by the end of the half an hour, when I got back at home, I'd perfect clarity. Me on what I needed to do. Now this was a business related thing, but it doesn't need to be a business thing. It could be something in your personal life that you need to remember so that is so, so useful. And then when it comes to I was talking about my cables, but also clothing adapters, basically everything, every kind of item in the house. What I've now got is I've added them all to a database on my computer. Now I use a tool called notion, but you don't have to use notion. You could use, you could use whatever you like. But I take, I took a photo. So when Bev was here, we'd find something. I take a photo of it and attach that to the database, put it what it is, and it's in Box A in Ian's office, or it's in box D and in the loft, or whatever. Now my son, Timothy, the other day, said, Oh, have you got one? Have you because he's inherited my geekiness. You say, have you got, have you got your flop, that floppy drive? He's into floppy drives. I mean, I thought that was a 1980s 1990s thing, but he's into that. He said, Oh yeah, yeah, it's somewhere, but I don't know. So I've got my phone up search for floppy drive, and it said, Oh, it's box C. It speaks with a posh voice. You see, it's in box C and in Ian's Ian's studio. So sure enough, it was there. Now the only problem with my system, it's a great system, but if you have kids, they can then take it and then don't put it back. So I did have, I have a checking out system where he can check stuff out, but he doesn't always remember to do that. So what I'm trying to say here is systems and tools can help, but they're not going to be perfect. You need to have a bit of grace and flexibility with that. But all of those things have really, really helped me. It just means that I know where things are. Are they perfect? No, but generally speaking. And then I mentioned also that that carry on bag that I've got all my, all of my stuff that I need for travel I did. So the reason I'm mentioning that again now is that I did have all of those things scattered around. So I had my adapters, my US and EU adapters downstairs, and I had other things up here. And then every time I went either on holiday or a business trip, I would be stressing around because I'd try and be finding all these things. In the end, I actually just got some duplicate items and just put them all together in one place. And although, yes, okay, that's a bit more money, but it just, it's far less stress for me. So yeah, I hope those tools are helpful. Definitely. You

42:31
know what I think it's, what I think it is. And so Ingrid and I, so obviously, AI is a big thing in the entrepreneur world at the moment. So Ian's doing an event in a couple of weeks. It's probably, probably probably will have already been there by the time this podcast comes out, Ian. But, you know, we're very excited, because I think it's about opening yourself up to the possibility, and not kind of in things like AI and notion and asana and all of these fantastic tools. You know, if you, if you ever think to yourself, gosh, I wish I could find something to do that, or I wish that could be fixed in that way. Some clever person somewhere will already have thought about that, and it will be available. But I think it's just about opening yourself up to the possibility of that helping you. And it can take effort. So do Ingrid. And I think that to incorporate AI into certain elements of our business. We use it already, actually, for some podcast structuring. So for example, if we are thinking about concepts of the podcast, we'll come up with all the concepts, and AI will structure it for us. And so things like that are really useful. We don't use it loads. We definitely could use it way more, which is why we're going to Ian's event in a couple of weeks. But I think it is, you know, Ingrid, and I saying we need to do more with this, because this is really going to save us a lot of time and a lot of heartache. And I think that's the point. It's you almost need to invest now to recoup the rewards later, you know, because what Ian was talking about there being able to kind of blurt out your thoughts and for some clever sort of software to be able to formulate that into a structure. That means that the following day you can come back to that. You know, it's this idea of having a notebook next to your bed when you wake up in the middle of the night. That's what that used to be, and now we've got technology at our fingertips. That means we can just talk it through, can't we? So good? And

44:17
the talking bit is that's the game changer for me, because, like, I don't always want to be stuck in front of technology all the time. So what I can do is I can put them my phone in my pocket, if I have my earphones on, I can go for a walk and have a chat with chat GPT. I mean, my wife jokes a little bit. She says, Oh, you've been talking to chat GPT again, have you? You know, but, but it really organizes my thoughts and we had, we had some new cleaners the other day, and my wife just said, because I was going to be showing them around, you need to remember all of these things to tell them about different aspects of the rooms. I thought, I'm not going to remember all of that. She said, Well, you just note it down. I said, why don't we just i. Just get my phone out and we can talk through chatgpt, through it all. So we went around the house, explained to chatgpt everything about it, and then I said to Okay, can you put it in a list for me, for me to be able to give to the cleaners? And it did that. So, and it doesn't need to be difficult. So if some of this sounds like complicated or anything, if you have an iPhone or an Android phone, just download the chat GPT app. Just make sure it's the correct one. There are some, there are some kind of fake ones out there. So it's from open AI, that's the company open AI, chat GPT, download it. It's it's free. There is a paid version, but you don't need that. And then just have a little play. Dip your toe. There's click on the little, there's a little wavy icon on the bottom right. Click on that, start talking. And the thing is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what. Just you can talk gibberish. You can make mistakes and it'll and you can actually ask it. Can you help me understand chat? GPT, one thing that I do is, if it's something that I don't understand. I said, Can you please explain this as if you were speaking to a young child, using maybe use analogies or anything like that. And sometimes that really helps. It's kind of treating me like a little child. And then I can add some extra bits and extra levels, and you can have a conversation with it as well. So if you want to just tip your toe, if you're scared about it, I kind of get that but, but just have a little play, and you might be surprised. It can really, really help those of us with ADHD, but you know, just generally help you organize your thoughts.

46:35
I can already feel a whole AI Podcast coming on again, because I think scratch the surface of what AI can do for anybody who's struggles a little bit organizationally, because I think there's some real gems in there. So thank you so much for sharing that information all about your ADHD journey and about how those tools have been helping you. I, for one, cannot wait to come to your event in a couple of weeks. So tell people a little bit more about you, where they can find you, and all that kind of good stuff.

47:06
Yeah, well, you could. I mean, I have carelessly scattered myself across most of the interwebs and the socials. So, you know, connect with me wherever you want. My full name search for me. Ian Anderson, gray. That's gray with an A My website is iag.me so that's probably the best place to go. As I mentioned, I've got this fairly new podcast. It's been going on for about four or five months. I'm really, really enjoying it. It's called the Smart ADHD podcast, and it's kind of, it's for smart creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs, but really it's for everybody who is kind of navigating their lives with ADHD, and we focus on smart strategies. So again, we're not looking at the we're not sugar coating things, but we're looking at smart strategies to help. And we also have some real stories from real people as well, chucked in from time to time as well. So yeah, do get in touch. I'd love, love to hear from people, because I think sometimes it can feel a bit lonely, and if you have ADHD, you can feel like you're on your own, that you no one understands you. So yeah, there's a book that I'd recommend by our ADHD family coach. She's called Dr Tamara rozhya, and her first book is, your brain's not broken. So, so helpful when it comes to ADHD, and she's just written another book just come out, called you me and our ADHD family. So if you are realizing that you're you have ADHD, or you likely have ADHD, or people in your family do, or maybe you all have it, that is a really good book. I'm kind of halfway through that book, and it's so, so helpful. So I highly recommend that.

48:38
So listener says any of the things that Ian has been talking about today resonated with you. Are you going to start using AI and notion, or do you think perhaps somebody in your family may have ADHD so let us know in the comments. Let us know in socials. And thank you so much for listening. And thank you to Ian, and we will see you next week. You

49:03
thanks so much for listening to the declutter hook podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode and we'll see you next week.
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Useful Links and Resources
The Smart ADHD Podcast
Episode 247 – My ADHD Journey with Luke Spellman
Episode 196 – My weight loss and ADHD journey with Baron Watson of Wyre Forest
Episode 135 – Why digital clutter needs to be tackled too
The Clutter Fairy
ID Roller
Your Brain’s Not Broken & You, Me and Our ADHD family by Tamara Rosier
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Recent Posts
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Episode 405 – What your clutter is doing to your mental health

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